Cape Town - Data collected by the Department of Home Affairs’ (DHA) immigration officers at ports of entry shows tourists are flooding back to South Africa and locals are travelling more.
In December last year, more than 2.8 million travellers (arrivals, departures and transits) passed through the country’s ports of entry.
These were made up of 965 599 South African residents and 1.9 million foreign travellers.
Foreign traveller arrivals increased by 179.8% from 347 188 in December 2021 to 971 425 in December 2022.
Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) which compiled the DHA data for December 2022, said a comparison between the movement in December 2021 and December 2022 showed the volume of arrivals, departures and travellers in transit increased for both South African residents and foreign travellers.
Stats SA said 190667 came from overseas; 476 932 came from the SADC region; 9 180 from other African countries and the country of residence of 1 059 tourists was classified as unspecified.
The 10 leading countries in terms of the number of tourists visiting South Africa in December 2022 from other African countries were: Kenya, 2042; Nigeria, 1501; Uganda, 1155; Ghana, 967; Cameroon, 451; Gabon, 443; Ethiopia, 434; Egypt, 365; Congo, 185 and Côte d’Ivoire, 140.
Tourists from these 10 countries constituted 83.7% of all tourists from “other” African countries.
There were 122 481 overseas tourists from Europe; 37 517 from North America; 12 355 from Australasia; 12119 from Asia; 3 237 from Central and South America; and 2 958 from the Middle East.
The statistics, released as data from the South African Hotel Review, confirmed that hotel occupancy for the Western Cape had surpassed pre-pandemic levels in December 2022.
Hotel occupancy in the province stood at 72% in December last year, representing a full recovery rate of 106% when compared to December 2019 when the figure stood at 68.1%.
The report with data collated by Smith Travel Research (STR), an international hospitality analytics firm, showed that in December 2022 the Average Daily Rate (ADR) for hotels in the Western Cape grew to R2 302, exceeding December 2019 levels, recovering to 114%.
Finance and Economic Opportunities MEC Mireille Wenger said: “As more and more data and insights on the performance over our summer season emerge, the more excited I get that our expectations for a bumper season may be confirmed and, in some cases, exceeded.”
Wenger said more visitors meant more jobs and growth for the provincial economy.
Wesgro chief executive Wrenelle Stander said: “The positive hotel occupancy figures follow the data we’re seeing emerge from Airports Company South Africa (ACSA), which shows that Cape Town International Airport’s domestic terminal recorded a year high of 570 000 two-way passengers for December.”
Stander said international passenger performance hit 96% in December 2022, compared to December 2019, with 270 000 two-way passengers passing through the terminal.