Poverty shrinks South Africans’ travel horizons
MORE than 800 000 people who visited the Eastern Cape from other provinces between January and December 2016 were only in the province to shop.
This was according to a Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) domestic travel survey, which showed that while total expenditure on domestic travel held stable at R87-billion in 2015 and 2016, there has been a considerable decline since 2014, when South Africans spent R110-billion on local travel.
The Eastern Cape, the second top province to be visited for shopping, comes just after Limpopo at 1.1-million people from other provinces.
In the Eastern Cape, Northern Cape and Gauteng, spending on shopping by visitors was more prevalent than in any other provinces.
The report, released yesterday by Statistician-General Pali Lehohla, shows that the Eastern Cape had the highest number of average nights spent in a province by tourists at seven.
In 2015 the second-most visited province by tourists was Eastern Cape, followed by KwaZulu-Natal. In 2016, Gauteng was second followed by KwaZulu-Natal.
The report further states that a larger percentage of day trips were undertaken to Eastern Cape (9.8%) than North West (9.1%), Mpumalanga (7.5%) and KwaZulu-Natal (6.2%). Free State was least visited for day trips at 4.5%.
The provinces of destination with the lowest number of day travellers from other provinces were the Western Cape, where 0.8% of day travellers were from outside the province, Eastern Cape had 2.3% outside visitors and Limpopo 12.5%.
The most common mode of transport used by people travelling to the Eastern Cape were buses and taxis. Tourists who travelled for leisure visited mostly the Western Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape.
Over 2.5 million of the people who visited the Eastern Cape preferred to stay with relatives and friends book accommodation.
More than 75.7% of tourists travelling to the Eastern Cape were unlikely to stay up to one week. However, a substantial portion stayed for longer than two weeks (13%).
Cash-strapped South Africans are taking fewer local trips, and those who do travel are spending less.
The data looks at two sorts of domestic travel – day trips of 40km or more and overnight trips involving one or more nights.
The number of day trips South Africans undertook saw a marked decline from 44.3 million in 2015 to 39.4 million in 2016.
Overnight trips decreased from 45.4 million in 2015 to 43 million in 2016. The single biggest reason given for not undertaking overnight trips in 2016 was financial.
Most day trips taken in 2016 were for shopping or visiting family or friends.
Other top reasons for taking day trips were leisure and funerals.
On average, South Africans spent about R1 367 on their most recent day trip, while they spend an average of R1322 on overnight trips.
Those undertaking overnight trips reported that the number one reason was to visit family and friends. Leisure and funerals were also popular.
The main destinations for overnight travel were Limpopo, Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal.
While travelling, 73% stayed with family or friends, 4.45% in self-catering and 4.1% stayed in hotels.
The average stay for those who spent nights away from home was about one week, and more than half of those who travelled, reached their destination by taxi.
Lehohla said that in addition to tough economic conditions, the number of unemployed people was growing in South Africa and millions were living below the poverty line.
“Under those conditions, travel will suffer,” he said. — than