Tourism to South Africa is starting to Increase

South Africa’s Tourism Minister, Marthinus van Schalkwyk recently released some positive statistics!  After 2 – 3 years of very poor occupancy for many hotels, these numbers show the start of a slight growth.

According to our Minister overall tourist arrivals to South Africa grew by 10, 5% in the first quarter of this year, with strong growth recorded across all regions,

January, February and March saw a total of 2 267 807 tourist arrivals to South Africa – 216 031 (10, 5%) more than in the corresponding period in 2011.

In a very strong start to the year, overseas tourist arrivals were up by a combined 17,8%.

The Minister said it was a most encouraging sign that tourist arrivals growth had come from all regions. “These are wonderful results for the destination, the country, the tourism industry and the economy.”

“Emerging markets continued their robust, positive growth of 2011, while traditional markets recovered the lost ground of the period 2008-2011 and bounced back to reach positive growth in the early part of the year,” he continued.

Arrivals by numbers:  Tourist arrivals from:

• Europe up by 11,9% (394 716 tourists).
• UK, SA's biggest overseas source market, recovered from an overall decilne in 2011 to positive returns of 9,5%, delivering 133 729 tourists in the first three months of this year.
• Germany maintained a strong positive growth trend, with a 15,2% growth rate (77 768 tourists).
• United States also returned excellent growth of 16,1% (70 095 tourists).
• Brazil posted 71,7% growth (19 133 tourists).
• India grew by 23,1% (21 138 tourists).
• China increased by 67,7% (30 883 tourists).

In total, the regional Asian market returned tourist arrivals growth of more than 43%, delivering 85 189 tourists, compared with 59 549 tourists for the same period last year.