The Number Of Tourists Visiting South Africa Has Increased

“the South African tourist industry is prepared for a wonderful bounce back and excellent development,” Minister of Tourism Lindiwe Sisulu told the media. “This comes after the first half of the year (2022) showed an astounding 147% rise in arrivals, reaching an outstanding 2,285,746.”

At the media conference in Johannesburg, where she was presenting the domestic and international tourist performance for the period beginning in January 2022 and ending in June 2022, Sisulu made her remarks. According to what Sisulu had to say, “We are especially delighted that the arrivals from the Americas surged by 331% and constituted 128,991 arrivals.”

According to the Minister, Europe continues to be our most important market in abroad, and in spite of external shocks such as the crisis in Ukraine, it nevertheless “had the most notable percentage growth in arrivals of 563%.”

However, she believes that the African land market is our primary source of revenue, and that it has also seen spectacular growth, dwarfing the arrival numbers in Europe and the Americas. She continued by saying that “1,634,244 passengers arrived through the African aviation market.”

The growing trend of the business is particularly impressive on the domestic front, where there were 15.2 million journeys made inside the country between January and June of 2022. The Minister referred to this as “a major win for the tourism sector as this is higher than pre-pandemic levels, indicating that South Africa’s domestic tourism sector has also experienced a revenge travel trend.” This is because the current numbers are higher than those recorded before the pandemic.

When compared to the same time period in 2021, the percentage of people going on vacation has climbed by 23.8%, and the amount that they spend on those vacations has surged to 28.6%, according to Sisulu, who stated that this was the most encouraging element of the figures. According to the minister, “you must have a healthy domestic market as a rule of thumb because it is a silver bullet that converts residents into storytellers and advocates of their nation.”

According to the performance report, the average amount spent by South Africans on domestic travel is R2,850. The Minister was certain that the relaxation of COVID-19 travel limitations was the single most important factor in the increase of domestic travel during the first half of 2022. In terms of global airlift, the stats are trending in an encouraging direction as well. She said that “there is a constant growth in worldwide seat capacity,” and that “air capacity is barely 61% of the levels that it will be in 2019.” She also mentioned that “Airlink, which is the biggest carrier, has seen rates go up by 7%.”

She found it most amazing that “The lines serving Johannesburg account for 75% of the total seat capacity in South Africa. Seat capacity on the flights to Johannesburg increased by 71% between 2021 and now; Qatar is the route with the most passengers arriving from there.

She said that Cape Town is home to an astonishing 1.2 million seats, with Emirates Airways serving as the city’s primary route. “And, Durban’s King Shaka International Airport is punching above its weight, with a 150% growth from 2021, accounting for 4% of all seats,” she said. “And, Durban’s King Shaka International Airport is fighting above its weight.” She went on to say that “the Durban lines were the most extensive route in the area” and that they had grown by more than 400% since Emirates began offering tickets on those flights.

In addition, Kruger had 23,100 seats in 2022, which was less than 1% of the total number of seats available on foreign routes. According to the tourist performance report, Lufthansa departing from Frankfurt and Airlink departing from Livingstone are the two airlines that actively service this route.

Because of this new rising trend known as forward bookings, the future is looking even more promising than it did before. The Minister said that “forward bookings climbed by 328% in August,” totaling 85,960 more reservations than in July. Specifically, “There was a rise of 287% between the months of August and October (187,667). She went on to say that there was a 227% rise in reservations (294,220) from the month of August to the month of January 2023.