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The Importance of the African Market

Natalia Thomson, of Travel News Now, reports that South Africa appears to be seeing little growth in tourist arrivals except from certain African markets.

The latest tourism and migration statistics issued by Stats SA last week, indicate a whopping 14% growth in African arrivals from January to November 2005.Markets like Lesotho (up 12,6%), Mozambique (up 36%), Swaziland (up 6%) and Zimbabwe (up 29,8%) are the main contributors to this growth in arrivals.

The argument that many of these visitors are in fact not tourists in the true sense of the word has been raised continuously by the tourism trade. SA Tourism and others, however, highlight that many of these visitors do in fact make use of tourist facilities while visiting the country even though the purpose of their visit may be for trade.The Stats SA report indicates that the vast majority of mainland African visitors arriving in South Africa have cited holiday as their main purpose of visit.

The bumper growth out of African markets is not shared by South Africa’s traditional overseas markets. Only the United Kingdom and United States registered gains in tourist numbers during the period, January to November 2005.Some 422 862 British tourists visited SA during this period, up 4,5% from the 403 426 reported to have visited SA during the same period in 2004. US tourist arrivals increased from 194 780 to 219 082 (up 11%).

Germany saw a 1,5% increase in tourist numbers, while French tourist arrivals continued its decline, settling at 8% lower and The Netherlands dipped by 4,5%.From Asia, Chinese tourist arrivals continued to drop with 9,7% fewer arrivals. Japanese tourist arrivals, however, jumped by 15% to 27 174 in the Jan to Nov 2005 period.

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