International tourism growth slow
THE TOURISM data released by Statistics SA showed only a 1.8% year-onyear (y/y) increase in overseas tourists visiting South Africa in the first quarter to 764 294. This was well below the 7% y/y growth rate of global tourism in the first quarter, based on UN World Tourism Organisation data.
The poor overseas tourist growth was, however, offset by an 8.5% y/y increase in tourists from the Southern Africa Development Community to 1 979 544, so the overall increase in tourists was 6.4 percent y/y.
Part of the reason for the poor performance in the overseas tourism market is that the rand is now 10% more expensive than a year ago, on a quarterly average basis.
By comparison, Turkey is far cheaper due to the drop in the value of the Turkish lira relative to European currencies.
This is reflected in the 34.9% y/y surge in tourists to Turkey in the first quarter to 5.128 million.
Europe is the main source region for overseas tourists to South Africa, so a diversion of European tourists to Turkey means fewer will travel to South Africa.
In March, Europe provided almost two thirds of overseas tourists with a 64.2% share, North America at 15.6%, Asia with 9.4%, Australasia with 4.4 percent, Central and South America at 4.0% and the Middle East with 2.4%.
The UK continues to be the leading source country for overseas tourists followed by Germany and the US.
A comparison of movement in the 10 leading overseas tourist countries between March 2017 and this year shows that the number of tourists increased for five of the 10 leading countries, namely Germany, Australia, UK, USA and Canada, but decreased for China, the Netherlands, India, France and Brazil.