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Overseas tourists heading to South Africa from January 2017
Date: 21 Aug 2018 Category: Economics |
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We take a look at the latest inbound tourism numbers as published by Statistics South Africa with a particular focus on tourists arriving from overseas countries in South Africa over time.
While the bulk of inbound tourists in South Africa come from other African countries, this article will focus on inbound tourists from overseas countries heading to South Africa. |
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Inbound overseas tourism numbers since January 2017
The line chart below shows the number of overseas tourist arrivals in South Africa per month since the start of 2017.
The bar chart above clearly shows that the underlying trend in overseas tourist arrivals is a declining one. It seems less and less tourists are visiting South Africa. The summary below shows the monthly tourist numbers per month from January 2017:
- Jan-17:286557
- Feb-17:287 836
- Mar-17:285 001
- Apr-17:257 927
- May-17:205 779
- Jun-17:182 775
- Jul-17:246 348
- Aug-17:254 908
- Sep-17:246 072
- Oct-17:306 495
- Nov-17:297 652
- Dec-17:293 959
- Jan-18:286 090
- Feb-18:288 495
- Mar-18:296 310
- Apr-18:228 097
- May-18:165 137
- Jun-18:149 791
The summary below shows the year on year growth in overseas tourists heading to South Africa from January 2017:
Well there could be a large number of reasons for this, such as massive sporting events such as the Soccer World Cup in Russian meant people went there for holidays instead of coming to South Africa. but more likely reasons include:
1. High levels of crime
2. Political instability in the country
3. South Africa not marketing themselves and not being marketed enough as a tourist destination
4. High incidences of international tourists being followed from airports and robbed on the way to their destinations or hotels (links back to point 1 of high levels of crime).
5. Warmer than usual summers in Europe, which meant less people wanting to leave the warm weather for a cold winter in South Africa.
While there could be numerous other reasons for why the overseas tourist numbers are so low, it should be concerning to government and the tourism industry that the industry is showing such strong declines in overseas tourist arrivals.
- Jan-18 : -0.16%
- Feb-18 : 0.23%
- Mar-18: 3.97%
- Apr-18 : -11.57%
- May-18: -19.75%
- Jun-18: -18.05%
Well there could be a large number of reasons for this, such as massive sporting events such as the Soccer World Cup in Russian meant people went there for holidays instead of coming to South Africa. but more likely reasons include:
1. High levels of crime
2. Political instability in the country
3. South Africa not marketing themselves and not being marketed enough as a tourist destination
4. High incidences of international tourists being followed from airports and robbed on the way to their destinations or hotels (links back to point 1 of high levels of crime).
5. Warmer than usual summers in Europe, which meant less people wanting to leave the warm weather for a cold winter in South Africa.
While there could be numerous other reasons for why the overseas tourist numbers are so low, it should be concerning to government and the tourism industry that the industry is showing such strong declines in overseas tourist arrivals.