April 19, 2018: Updated News About Cape Town, South Africa

Since January 2018, there have been widespread reports regarding drought conditions in Cape Town, South Africa.

Gate 1 Travel has been monitoring the situation closely and is in constant contact with local officials.

The reservoirs that feed Cape Town are very low after three successive years of below-average rainfall. As a result, Cape Town has introduced water restrictions for residents. Non-essential water usage, including watering gardens, washing cars and use for swimming pools, has been banned.

Hotels and restaurants in Cape Town only have taken various measures to conserve water usage. Each new guest checking in will have clean towels and linen; however, bed linen will not be changed on a 4 night stay. Towels will not be changed during a 4 night stay unless absolutely necessary. Linen table cloths will not be provided and paper napkins instead of linen napkins will be used during all meals. Hotels are not permitting bath tubs to be used and therefore no bath plugs will be provided. The use of hand sanitizers is encouraged instead of hand washing. These measures will be advised to guests at hotel check-in.

Drinking water will be available in all hotels in bottle form, with some hotels providing free water in the room and others charging a fee.

Gate 1 Travel has been operating all of our tours to South Africa and we continue to receive positive feedback from our guests. Meanwhile, South Africa tourism is stressing the importance of the positive economic impact which tourism brings to the country and therefore everyone is working hard to ensure the comfort of guests during this time. It is important to note that the other areas visited in your itinerary are not impacted by the water issues faced by Cape Town

Gate 1 Management