A total of 9 188 368 international tourists visited South Africa in 2012, 10.2% greater than the 8 339 354 tourists who travelled to the rustic in 2011, President Jacob Zuma has revealed.
South Africa’s tourist growth rate in 2012 was greater than double the velocity of average global tourist growth of about 4% estimated by the United Nations World Tourism Organisation in 2012.
South Africa saw particularly good overseas tourist growth (tourists from outside of the African continent), which grew by 15.1%, one of many highest growth rates on the earth last year.
Europe remained the top source of overseas tourists to South Africa, growing by 9.5% on 2011 figures and attracting a complete of one 396 978 tourists to the rustic last year – greater than half the whole variety of overseas tourists.
The Uk is still South Africa’s biggest overseas tourism market, with 438 023 UK tourists travelling to South Africa in 2012 (4.2% up on 2011 figures). The U.S. is South Africa’s second biggest overseas tourism market, with 326 643 tourists from the us visiting in 2012 (up 13.6% on 2011 figures), with Germany the third biggest overseas market with 266 333 tourists (up 13% on 2011 figures). China has become South Africa’s fourth biggest overseas tourism market, 132 334 (up 55.9% on 2011 figures), with France now South Africa’s fifth biggest overseas tourism market with 122 244 tourists in 2012 (up 16% on 2011 figures).
Particularly strong growth was recorded in 2012 from Asia (up 33.7% at the figures recorded in 2011), driven by growth from China and India, and Central and South America (up 37.0%), due to continued good tourist growth out of Brazil.
“We are extremely pleased with our tourist arrivals figures for 2012 and our continued tourism growth from all regions. This phenomenal tourism growth is evidence that we’re successfully setting ourselves apart in a competitive marketplace and that South Africa’s reputation as a friendly, welcoming, inspiring and unique tourism destination continues to grow,” said President Zuma, when announcing the 2012 international tourism statistics at a media briefing on the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront today.
President Zuma said that the 2012 tourist growth figures confirmed that the country’s tourism marketing efforts were on the right track, backed by a powerful, professional tourism industry that offered a wide selection of tourist offerings to fit every experience and each budget.
“These figures give us confidence that we’re making good progress in our efforts to grow the tourism industry in South Africa. But we can’t become complacent. Increasingly more countries world wide are realising the chance that tourism presents for growing their economies and creating jobs and our geographic position makes our fight for the worldwide tourism share harder than most. As a tourism industry we need to remain committed to working together to grow tourism to our country, with the support of all South Africans, all of whom have the facility to be important tourism ambassadors,” said President Zuma.
While President Zuma emphasised the significance of constant to keep up and grow the country’s market share in its core markets of Europe and North America, he was all for the expansion recorded from the emerging markets of regional Africa, Asia and South America.
“A few years ago we took the verdict to start actively marketing destination South Africa in emerging markets, which has yielded extremely positive results. Since 2009 arrivals from China have greater than tripled, arrivals from Brazil have greater than doubled and arrivals from India have almost doubled,” said President Zuma.
China jumped from being South Africa’s eighth largest overseas source market in 2011 to its fourth largest overseas source market in 2012. In 2012, 132 334 people visited South Africa from China, a 55.9% increase in growth, driven partially by the outlet up of an instantaneous flight between Beijing and Johannesburg in January 2012.
The impressive growth in arrivals from India continued in 2012, with 106 774 Indian visitors to South Africa, growth of 18.2%, making it South Africa’s eighth largest overseas source market.
Brazil continued to indicate impressive growth rates becoming a top ten overseas source marketplace for arrivals for the primary time (ninth). a complete of 78 376 Brazilians came to South Africa in 2012, a 44.7% increase on 2011 numbers.
“The BRICS summit held in Durban last month highlighted the industrial potential that our affiliation with this bloc has for South Africa and the tourism industry is not any exception. Tourist arrivals from the BRICS countries accounted for 330 834 of our international tourist numbers in 2012 and the potential of further growth is big. Greater collaboration at this level will unquestionably go a ways in making South Africa a more accessible destination for visitors from these markets and ensuring that these countries continue to fuel our industry’s success going forward,” said President Zuma.
“Regional Africa remains the pillar of our tourism economy and we’re happy to work out that arrivals from the region have maintained the forged growth path we have now become acquainted with. Africa’s importance to our tourism industry will keep growing, as African economies are amongst the most effective performing economies on this planet in the mean time,” President Zuma added
Foreign tourists spent a complete of R76.4 billion in South Africa last year, up 7.6% at the total foreign direct spend inside the country in 2011. Spend by tourists from the Americas, Asia & Australsia in addition to Europe have all increased. The one decrease in spend was from tourists from our continental land markets, which result in the common spend per tourist decreasing by 2,3%.
The average length of stay decreased from 8.5 nights per tourist in 2011 to 7.6 nights in 2012 driven off shorter stays by tourists from most of our markets. This can be a global trend that is affecting all our competitors end result of the economic downturn all over the world.