Cape Town - Fewer tourists overall visited South Africa in February this year than in January, according to the latest data collected by Statistics SA from the border statistics put together by the Department of Home Affairs (DHA), and the majority of these were from Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries.
The data released on Tuesday showed that of the 820 000 foreign arrivals recorded arriving and departing at South Africa’s various ports of entry, including those in transit, 799 000 were classed as visitors, and of these 600 000 stayed overnight, becoming tourists.
In January there were 1.1 million foreign arrivals of whom 1 million were visitors. This number was further broken down into 200 000 in transit and 840 000 overnight visitors, or tourists.
The majority of the tourists, 66.6%, were from SADC countries with Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Lesotho contributing the biggest numbers.
The UK, Germany and the US contributed 50.4% of all the tourists, and other non-SADC African countries, mainly Kenya, Nigeria and Uganda, came to 1.8%.
The statistics show about 95.5% of all the tourists declaring they were in South Africa for holiday purposes.
These included tourists who came on holiday to visit friends and relatives, for shopping and other personal reasons.
Statistician-General Risenga Maluleke said though the recovery of the sector had begun, it was still highly uncertain and the pandemic’s after-effects were a reminder of tourism’s vital role as an economic and social force for change in the country.
Meanwhile, standing committee on finance, economic opportunities and tourism chairperson Cayla Murray is concerned about the national government’s delays implementing the remote working visa promised by President Cyril Ramaphosa in his State of the Nation Address earlier in the year.
Murray said it was a guaranteed way to boost economic activity, and added: “I will be inviting the DHA to the standing committee to account for the inexcusable delays in implementing a remote work visa.”
She said the province had been advocating for the implementation of the remote work visa since 2021, and had made multiple detailed proposals to the DHA on how such a visa could work
“But this visa has not been adopted yet, raising the question of whether the ANC ever plans to follow through on the promises of President Ramaphosa.”
mwangi.githahu@inl.co.za