South African Tourism Minister says that the foreign tourist arrival numbers are surging ahead in this year, with over 2.3 million tourists in first half of the year, a rise of 147 pc from the same period last year.

Tourism industry in South Africa is streaming ahead as the country reports strong performance in the first half of the year. “The South African tourism sector is poised for a tremendous bounce back and positive growth after the first half of the year (2022) figures show a staggering 147 pc in arrivals reaching an impressive 2,285,746,” South African Tourism Minister Lindiwe Sisulu said in a media session in Johannesburg.

Sisulu was presenting the domestic and international tourism performance for January to June 2022. “We are particularly pleased that the arrivals from the Americas increased by 331 pc and represented 128,991 arrivals,” Sisulu said.

According to the Minister, Europe remains South Africa’s key overseas market and despite external shocks such as the war in Ukraine, it still “had the most considerable percentage increase in arrivals of 563 pc.”

However, she maintains that the African land market is South Africa’s bread and butter, and it also showed impressive growth, dwarfing the Europe and Americas arrivals numbers. She added: “The African air market brought in 1,634,244 arrivals.”

She added that tourism’s upward trajectory was overwhelming on the domestic front and between January and June 2022, 15.2 million domestic trips were taken. “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,” she said.

Sisulu said the most heart-warming aspect of the numbers was that the share of holiday trips has increased by 23.8 pc compared with the same period in 2021, and the average spend has skyrocketed to 28.6 pc. “As a rule of thumb, you must have a buoyant domestic market because it is a silver bullet that turns locals into storytellers and ambassadors of their country,” the Minister said.

The performance report shows that South Africans spend ZAR 2,850 (INR 13130) on their domestic trips. “The biggest driver of domestic travel in the first six months of 2022 was the easing of Covid-19 travel restrictions,” the Minister insisted.

The report says that on global airlift, the numbers are also picking up quite nicely. “There is a steady increase in global seat capacity – Air capacity is just 61 pc of the 2019 levels, with Airlink as the largest airline, which has seen fares up by 7 pc,” says Sisulu.

“Most remarkably, 75 pc of seat capacity in South Africa is on Johannesburg routes. Seat capacity on the routes to Johannesburg grew 71 pc over 2021, with Qatar Airways being the largest airline in terms of seat capacity to the country,” says Sisulu, adding that Cape Town had an impressive 1.2 million seats, with Emirates Airways being the largest route.

“And, Durban – King Shaka International Airport is punching above its weight with a 150 pc growth from 2021 representing 4 pc of all seats,” she said. “The Durban routes grew with Emirates seats up over 400 pc and was the most extensive route in the region,” she added.

“Kruger also had 23,100 seats in 2022, which was less than 1 pc of all seats on international routes). The two airlines active on the route are Lufthansa from Frankfurt and Airlink from Livingstone,” says the report.

“Forward bookings increased by 328 pc to 85,960 seats in August and between August to October, there was a 287 pc rise to 187,667 seats. For August to January 2023, there was a 227 pc rise to 294,220 seats in terms of bookings,” says Sisulu.

“We will continue to intensify targeted communication on our digital platforms to sell South Africa as a destination of choice, inviting the world to come and “Live Again” with us,” she says.