South African Tourism continues to show remarkable growth with the arrival of more than 9 million tourists, a record number for Tourism in South Africa.
The overall growth of tourism worldwide was a little over 6%, while tourism in South Africa far exceeds that percentage which indicates that South Africa continues to outpace the global rates.
The remarkable growth of South African Tourism, tourists mainly come from Asia. “Tourists from China have increased by 12.9%, showing good growth that South Africa will continue encouraging tourism. Tourists from India grew by 16.9% and tourists from Australia showed a growth of 6.9% compared to prior periods’ said van Schalkwyk.
The tourists from neighboring countries have represented the majority of tourist arrivals in South Africa since 2002 and continued to show further growth in the last period. From Nigeria increased by 12.8%, Kenya by 14.7% and 10.2% in Angola.
In 1994 South Africa received 3 million foreign visitors. The spectacular growth in this sector over the past 15 years has made tourism one of the most important successes of the country and contributes to the economy. In 2006 tourism accounted for 8.3% of GDP of the country.
The Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism aims to have more than 10 million international visitors entering South Africa in 2.