Tourist arrivals grow 5.5% to support economy
September 16, 2009
Tourism continues to drive economic growth worldwide, "particularly travel to South Africa", according to a global survey carried out by credit card company Visa, using a combination of its own spending data and questionnaires filled in by travellers in 11 countries.
Presenting the results at a conference on the outlook for tourism yesterday, Charles Niehaus, the general manager of Visa in South Africa, said that despite the economic downturn international arrivals in South Africa last year increased by 5.5 percent - compared with 2007 - to 9.5 million visitors, and their spending with Visa cards rose by 4 percent to $1.8 billion (R13.3bn).
Visitors from the UK "continue to be by far the largest contributors to tourism revenues in South Africa", according to the report.
Their Visa payments totalled $518 million last year, compared with $295m by visitors from the US, $102m from Germany, $73m from France and $65.5m from Australia.
The report says spending by visitors from other parts of Africa and the Middle East and South America also increased.
Spending by visitors from Zambia rose 67 percent, from Mozambique 57 percent, from the United Arab Emirates by 39 percent, 37 percent from Brazil and 26 percent from Namibian visitors.
Visa data show tourists spent $892m on shopping, $235m on accommodation, $125m on air fares, $77.9m on travel agencies and $72.2m in restaurants.
The survey shows that countries with respondents most likely to visit South Africa for the first time were China (48 percent), Brazil (45 percent), and Australia, Germany and South Korea (35 percent).
About 14 percent of these intended to come for the soccer World Cup next year, particularly those from Brazil (46 percent), China (31 percent), South Korea (12 percent), Mexico and Russia (11 percent) and the US (9 percent).
Most of these intended to visit several parts of South Africa, as well as the cities in which their teams were playing, particularly Cape Town (63 percent), Johannesburg (49 percent) Pretoria (22 percent and Soweto (17 percent).
And 73 percent intended to visit other African countries, particularly Kenya (35 percent) and Angola (30 percent).
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