With the summer season here, South African tourism and hospitality businesses are bracing for a massive influx of tourists. Based on healthy inbound travel figures already seen this year, the country can expect a thriving tourism season over the coming months.
Between January to July 2023 alone, a sizeable 4.8 million international tourist arrivals visited South Africa, according to the Government Communications and Information System (GCIS). That is an incredible increase of 70.6% compared to the same period in 2022. The latest Stats SA report for August 2023 revealed that foreign arrivals increased by 20.1% year on year (from 820,708 in August 2022 to 985,800 in August 2023), departures rose by 22,6% and transits increased by 32.9%. These figures undoubtedly signal that South Africa continues to be an attraction to global holidaymakers.
Where are our tourists coming from?
Based on 2023 Q1 statistics, the top international tourist arrivals were from the United Kingdom, Germany, USA, and the Netherlands. This is consistent with pre-pandemic figures from a Quarterly Tourism Factsheet in 2018 where all the aforementioned countries are SA’s top overseas markets.
“In the hospitality and tourism industries we are very much used to welcoming German, American, Dutch, and British tourists to South Africa. What intrigues me, however, is not that our incoming tourists’ nationalities continue to be consistent with previous figures, but that we are seeing an increase in Middle Eastern holidaymakers, too. Last year Emirates and the South African Tourism Board signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to mutually market tourism and inbound visits to South Africa from principal markets within the Emirates network. Furthermore, Middle Eastern vacationers are spending roughly between 15 and 20 days in SA, making this a lucrative, growing market,” reveals Anton Gillis, CEO at Kruger Gate Hotel.
“Additionally, India has emerged as our country’s sixth-largest foreign source market with SA observing a stirring 200% surge in travellers from India over the last year. India is currently the world’s most populated country, and of course there is interest in how India’s growing population will influence tourism industries globally. By next year Indian travellers are projected to spend over $42 billion USD per year on outbound travel, so this is something to keep in mind.”
In a bid to surpass pre-pandemic arrival figures by the year’s end, South African Tourism recently kickstarted a ‘Learn South Africa’ travel trade initiative in Delhi, holding six training events across India to provide Indian travel agents with effective resources to appropriately market South Africa as a holiday destination. Furthermore, this year SA Tourism had a target of 47,000 Indian visitors which was already achieved in the first half of 2023, and current projections predict that the numbers could surpass 80,000 inbound tourists from India this year.
Developing flight routes
An increase in international flights to SA has also boosted the number of global visitors to our country. Sandra Kneubuhler, Radisson Hotel Group’s District Director and Country Director of Sales for South Africa, welcomes the positive impact that an increase in foreign visitors will have on the country’s tourism sector.
“Many international airlines cut back on their capacity during the pandemic. As we emerge from this period, airlines are once again re-introducing flights. Those in the hospitality and tourism sectors are rejoicing at the prospect of increased airlift, which can only have a positive impact on the local economy.
“South African Airways has just announced that after three years they are relaunching their intercontinental flights between Cape Town and Johannesburg to São Paulo, Brazil starting this month, which indeed is great news for the increase in Brazilian travellers to SA. We also expect an upturn in British tourists, who are known to love holidaying in SA, as Virgin Atlantic has resumed their Cape Town and London flight route which will add 80,000 seats to the route. Furthermore, the resumption of the Hong Kong – Joburg route by Cathay Pacific is a key step to the recovery of one of the country’s key feeder markets. This is wonderful news for our industry and country, and we look forward to even more positive airlift announcements in the near future,” reveals Kneubuhler.
Other new airlift includes Ethiopian Airlines’ plans to increase flights to SA by up to 35 flights a week, Swiss airline Edelweiss adding to its capacity between Cape Town and Zurich, and SAUDIA’s announcement to start direct flights from Jeddah to Johannesburg in December. And, early next year, Lufthansa will return to Johannesburg from Munich with three weekly flights and United Airlines will start flying from Chicago to Johannesburg.
Challenges to overcome
The South African tourism sector faces multiple challenges like loadshedding and crime, but these are problems that affect tourists once they land and begin their holiday. An obstacle that Tourism Minister Patricia de Lille is seeking to address is easing visa requirements for Chinese and Indian tourists with the hopes of stimulating an influx of arrivals from the world’s most populous nations.
De Lille was tasked with attracting at least 10 million visitors in the year through March, the same as before the global pandemic struck, and is targeting 15 million by 2030. The minister is said to have plans to convene with Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi ahead of a trip to Beijing this month where she plans to discuss the future of whether visas could be waived for Indian and Chinese arrivals for limited-duration visits, which is already the case for tourists from Brazil, Russia, the US and UK.
A Cities Economic Impact Report by the World Travel & Tourism Council recently revealed positive signs of recovery for SA’s travel and tourism sector, its findings showing that our major cities are witnessing a significant recovery as global travellers head back to our shores.
In 2020, 33 percent of travel and tourism expenditure in South Africa originated from foreign visitor spending, which amounted to 2.8 billion U.S. dollars. This figure declined during the pandemic, but earlier this year De Lille announced that foreign direct spend had soared to a whopping R25.3 billion in the first quarter of 2023, marking a 143.9% increase compared to Q1 of 2022. According to De Lille, “the overall foreign spend figure for quarter 1 this year is tantalisingly close to the R25.6 billion spent between January and March 2019, and showcases the industry’s unwavering resilience”.
With accolades like the 2023 Telegraph Travel Awards naming South Africa as the greatest country on earth, people are once again affirming SA as a world-favourite destination.