Tourism numbers to SA are up — but far below where they…

Tourist numbers to South Africa were up more than half a million in July — three times more than July 2021. That’s still off a low base though, as the sector battles to recover from the pandemic and the country’s devastating inclusion on the red list.

Stats SA released its latest Tourism and Migration statistics for July 2022 on Tuesday, which show that 2,075,688 travellers had passed through the country’s ports of entry and exit. Of these, 715,714 were South African residents and 1,359,974 foreign travellers. 

Of the foreign arrivals, 737,350 comprised 66,571 non-visitors and 670,779 visitors, comprising 162,955 same-day visitors and 507,824 overnight visitors, or tourists.

It indicated that 122,720 tourists were from overseas; 376,566 from SADC countries; 7,740 from “other” African countries, with 798 tourists classified as hailing from “unspecified” countries.

Most of the international tourists came from Europe, North America and Australasia.

Of those, most tourists came to SA for a holiday — not study, business or medical treatment: Within the overseas regions, 98.4% (4,836) from Australasia, and 98.4% (30,309) North America came here on holiday, followed by the Middle East, 97.8% (6,628); Central and South America, 96.8% (2,997); Europe, 96.6% (64,044) and Asia, 92.6% (10,004).

In July 2022, the distribution of overseas tourists was: Europe, 66,322 (54%); North America, 30,807 (25.1%); Asia, 10,803 (8.8%); the Middle East, 6,779 (5.5%)…