South Africa has had the worst coronavirus outbreak on the continent and saw a peak in new cases in July.
"I don't foresee any international tourism happening within this calendar year," Sisa Ntshona, chief executive officer of South Africa Tourism, told the BBC in July.
However, a tourism recovery plan published in August takes a more positive outlook, saying that the borders could reopen to Asian/Australasian countries in November 2020, with other "core markets" such as the US and UK following in April 2021. However, a second scenario in the same plan suggests that these dates could also be pushed to between May and July 2021 for Australasian visitors, and November 2021 for other international travelers.
According to the John Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, South Africa has seen 642,431 confirmed cases of the coronavirus, and 15,168 related deaths at the time of writing.