UK Strategic Comms Agency appointed to lobby for SA’s removal from the “Red List”

SATSA has appointed Eterna Partners, a leading PR and Strategy Consultancy based in the United Kingdom, to lobby on behalf of South Africa for the removal of the country from the UK’s Red List and resumption of travel between the UK and Southern Africa by October 2021.

The campaign will, amongst others, identify and leverage areas of UK-SA interest, build confidence in South Africa’s infection control and vaccination programme, and engage in the design and operation of new health certification and vaccine passport programmes.

If we as South Africa do not put a concerted effort into presenting a data-driven and scientific case to the decision-makers in the UK, the likelihood is that we will remain on the ‘red list’ for the foreseeable future.

The ‘burden of proof’ is on us to get involved proactively in the UK political and media debate and put a South African perspective into the policy discussions. Many of our competitor destinations have been actively lobbying in the media and to key decision-makers in the UK.

Eterna Partners are a leading PR and Strategy Consultancy based in the UK.  The two lead directors Christine Thompson and Nigel Fairbrass headed SABMiller’s media relations and government affairs lobbying at the head office in London for the past 12 years.

Drawing lessons from the SATSA Inbound Recovery Taskforce from last year, SATSA has established a robust Steering Committee chaired by Monika Iuel, CMO Wesgro, and including David Ryan (Founder and CEO Rhino Africa), Gillian Saunders (Tourism Industry Consultant), Craig Smith (CEO New Frontiers), Zuks Ramasia (CEO BARSA) and Chris Mears (CEO ATTA), along with Natalia Rosa from SATSA.

The Taskforce will draw on the credible scientific arguments from Professor Alex van den Heever, Chair: Social Security Systems Administration and Management Studies at Wits University’s School of Governance, and Professor Lucille Blumberg, Deputy Director at the National Institute of Communicable Diseases.

The Eterna campaign will be rolled out in three phases, the first two of which have already been funded, with SATSA seeking funding for the third phase from key industry stakeholders.

The Eternal proposal was initially entertained by the TBCSA COVID Board Sub-Committee, which I chair. After drawing on a number of key stakeholder inputs, the committee made a strong recommendation to the TBCSA board that this tactical opportunity needed to be pursued and funded.

It is deeply regrettable that the TBCSA chose not to fund it, however, we will continue to work closely with the organisation in its ongoing lobbying efforts. As SATSA represents the inbound tourism sector, we believe that it needs to be pursued and are therefore reaching out to some of our key members to get funding for that final phase of the campaign, while we continue with phases one and two. Time is of the essence.

The campaign will firstly seek to establish a credible voice in the UK and European debate on the future of international travel, drawing on the expertise of the South African scientific community to develop a narrative around risk, infection protocols, 501Y.V2 transmissibility, and AstraZeneca efficacy.

It will also build a diverse coalition of powerful supporters backing the resumption of travel to South Africa, building confidence and credibility in South Africa’s infection control. Finally, an evidence-led report demonstrating the safety of South Africa travel will be used for formal engagement with UK decision-makers and media.

The traditional decision-making process has shifted markedly in the last year within the UK. It has moved away from a reliance on in-country information and intelligence to being in the hands of the Prime Minister and a small group of senior ministers and public health officials. 

As such, the way in which the UK is approaching travel in relation to COVID is deeply political. In response, we are seeing to begin an intensive lobbying process on all fronts to provide these decision-makers with a ‘soft-landing ground’ to change their view on South Africa’s travel status. This will not be a quick win, but our target date for removing South Africa off the red list is October, in time for the peak season.

SATSA has done a lot of work lobbying our government on a variety of issues.  We now have to take the next step and take our lobbying efforts to our key source markets.  The UK is our single-largest overseas overall and leisure source market. The learnings we will develop in this process can also be applied to lobbying other key source markets to remove South Africa from their prohibitive lists.

Kind regards,
David Frost