The underlying reasons for the government enforcing yet another ban on alcohol sales – on- and off-site – are not up for discussion here; there’s a lot of blame and finger-pointing going on already. I was going to say “too much” but perhaps it’s “not enough”.
Last week we looked at how it’s affecting restaurants, along with a 9pm curfew, which drastically curtails their ability to trade with any kind of decent profit. Many have closed, and sadly, many more are likely to follow in the coming weeks as the ban has been extended to 15 February.
It’s not a competition, but this ban has perhaps an even bigger impact on the wine industry, still trying to recover from 2020 and heading into the 2021 harvest. Dr Winifred E Bowman, Cape Wine Master, crunched some numbers.
“As far as wine tourism is concerned, the situation is really scary: 77% of wine tourism revenue is from wine tasting (32%), accommodation (25%) and restaurants (20%), and from March to June 2020 alone R2-billion was lost from wine tourism,” she said. “The outlook for wine tourism is bleak and there was an estimated decline in international tourists of between 60-80% in 2020. The Tourism Business Council of South Africa estimates a R68-billion loss in spend was incurred. Wine tourism makes up a huge portion of this.”
VinPro, an NPO that represents 2,500 South Africa wine producers, cellars and industry stakeholders, estimates that more than 80 wineries and 350 grape growers will go out of business in the next 18 months, accounting for a potential loss of 21,000 jobs, said Bowman.
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