Tourism Highlights for 2007

The recently released foreign tourist arrival figures for 2007 contain all kinds of good news for the industry. This is most welcome in the context of some of the challenges we face at the moment. So we can all pause and reflect on a job well done, before taking up the challenge again with renewed gusto.

Foreign Tourist Arrivals Top 9 Million

Probably the most significant highlight of the South African tourism figures for 2007 is that for the first time ever, foreign tourist arrivals exceeded 9 million for a given year. This milestone caps a continuously growing trend of ever-increasing tourism rates, with the year by year graph showing almost exponential growth since 1966.

Double the Growth Target

Foreign tourist arrivals to South Africa increased by 8.3% over the previous year. SA Tourism’s growth target for the period was 4,4% - so actual growth exceeded the target by almost 100%. Put another way, growth occurred at almost double the rate we had hoped for.

If one further isolates a shorter, more recent period, the picture looks even more encouraging. The growth between 2005 and 2007 reached double figures, hitting 11.1% for the period.

SA Outperforms Global Tourism Growth

The other major statistic is that the growth in tourism to South Africa surpassed the overall global tourism growth for 2007. In other words, not only did more tourists come to South Africa than the previous year, but this increase was higher than the overall worldwide increase in tourism. Specifically, South Africa’s international arrival growth of 8.3% outstripped the global increase in tourist arrivals of 6.1%.

Our tourism arrivals therefore grew at a faster rate than the world average. Additionally, South Africa’s tourist arrivals growth rate is virtually double that of both Europe and the Americas, which only grew by 4.2% and 4.7%, respectively.

Africa Weighs In

Our neighbouring countries contributed more than their fair share during the past year: a whopping 75.5% of all foreign tourist arrivals were from Africa. This is encouraging from the point of view of South Africa being perceived and treated as a one of the continent’s most popular tourism destinations. Given that this tourism source is right on our doorstep, it’s certainly important to make the most of it, and all indications are that this is a market well worth tapping into.

Full Report

Get the full report at South African Tourism’s stand at INDABA 2008 - DECD027.