South African Tourism releases powerful isolation videos to encourage people to stay at home

The South African Tourism board has unveiled a new campaign that promotes the importance of self-isolation and social distancing to help combat the spread of COVID-19 (coronavirus). Called “Don’t Travel Now So You Can Travel Later”, two videos show haunting and beautiful scenes of empty streets and places with a message of hope and positivity for the future.

Released online a few days ago, the videos carry a striking message. One has a narrator telling us, “this is not business as usual, no regular day of the week. This will be something else. A country closed for travel and so closed for business. But just you wait until we can travel again. Boy are we going to travel. Long breaks and short getaways. To B&Bs, lodges and hotels. Girls’ trips. We’ll be reintroducing ourselves to South Africa again, to her beautiful people and places. But for now, stay home. Stay safe.”

The other video tells viewers to not be alarmed by scenes of lonely buildings and quiet roads, as images of shorelines, sunsets, trains, offices, universities and mountains sweep by the screen, stating that now is the time when humanity is taking a stand by taking a step back. In this one the narrator states, “we will meet again. We will do the things that matter with the people we love again. We will go back to our favourite spots, and we will even discover new ones.”

It includes a section of a speech from President Cyril Ramaphosa where he asked people to stay home, a sentiment that has been shared by many politicians and organisations all over the world.

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