PLETTENBERG BAY NEWS - While nationwide lockdown regulations have brought the hospitality industry to a standstill, Plettenberg Bay's Tourism chief executive Marius Venter revealed last week that the organisation has had several high-level discussions with Bitou Municipality and the Plett Business Chamber to evaluate the potential and explore ways to bring financial relief to businesses in Bitou.
In a similar manner to essential business services, Venter said restaurants, accommodation establishments and tourism activities would be expected, on reopening, to adopt comprehensive new cleaning, health and other Covid-19 spread-prevention protocols.
"Plett Tourism is in the process of negotiating an agreement with a Cape Town-based company, Wellness Safe, which offers a total turnkey solution when it comes to the newly proposed legislation pertaining to protocols in the hospitality industry."
'Programme uniqueness'
What makes the programme unique, he explained, is that it has a software programme linked to artificial intelligence which would profile each individual once that person's full particulars, destination detail, contact number and temperature have been logged onto the platform. "For example, if a tourist has breakfast at the Ski-boat Club and dinner at Emily Moon, he will be profiled when entering the Ski-boat Club, and then when he logs into Emily Moon, the back-end system will pick up if there is a difference in his or her temperature or in the questions answered when visiting the first establishment prior to entering the second establishment."
Venter said the system allows each tourist to do a quick six-question medical screening on his own mobile device prior to a check-in or visiting a restaurant. "The system will notify the establishment to which the individual seeks access if the manner in which any of the questions answered by the individual, any change in the health vitals of the individual or any other item of concern or inconsistency raises any matters of concern, resulting in the individual being flagged as an individual of concern.
'Artificial intelligence'
"The artificial intelligence will pick up any such concerns and monitor the individual on an ongoing basis as he or she seeks access to any tourism-related facilities so as to minimise the risk of Covid-19 transmission. The programme also allows the owner of an establishment to order the necessary approved viral PPE equipment to make sure staff and guests are protected at all times."
He said these practices are to ensure guests are confident that Plett's tourism community is looking out for their health and safety. "We are also excited to announce that Plett Tourism, Bitou Municipality and the Plett Business Chamber are investigating options for the local tourism industry to be a South African leader in offering a completely hygienically cleansed town.
"While we cannot guarantee that our town will remain free of the Covid-19 coronavirus owing to the fact that we are fighting an invisible enemy, we can demonstrate that we are availing ourselves of every reasonable resource to ensure the ongoing safety of our residents and visitors so that we are perceived as one of the safest destinations in the world to visit."
A further step, Venter said on 26 May, and on the brink of being implemented, is the town's free hand sanitiser project. "During the next seven days we will install eight 5 000-litre JoJo tanks containing hand sanitiser for our community, who will be able to collect between 500ml and 1 litre of hand sanitiser each, free of charge, for their household and personal use. We express our very sincere gratitude to all the donors who contributed to this incredibly significant project."
Dear reader, As your local news provider, we have the duty of keeping you factually informed on Covid-19 developments. As you may have noticed, mis- and disinformation (also known as “fake news”) is circulating online. Group Editors (publications and online platforms) is determined to filter through the masses of information doing the rounds and to separate truth from untruth in order to keep you adequately informed. Local newsrooms follow a strict pre-publication fact-checking protocol. A national task team has been established to assist in bringing you credible news reports on Covid-19.
'We bring you the latest Plettenberg Bay, Garden Route news'
