Africa starts to see more international travelers
Signs of life are beginning to show in the travel industry as visitor numbers to international destinations begin to rise.
ForwardKeys research showed that a return to normalcy began in Central America and the Caribbean in 2021 driven by pent-up demand from U.S. travelers and Europeans.
Now, FowardKeys has found that hunger has a new focus: Africa and the Middle East. The U.S. outbound market could aid recovery in the fragile tourism sector in Africa, according to ForwardKeys.
The company found that the volume of flight searches from the U.S. to South Africa has grown by 2% from January to February 2022. The overall volume of flight searches to South Africa for the same period is up by 30%.
However, interest needs to be converted into bookings in order to constitute a recovery.
International arrivals into Africa and the Middle East confirm that intent to visit is translating into arriving tourists.
In the second quarter of this year, international arrivals to Africa are at -33% compared with 2019 levels, above the total international outbound average of -45% and just behind the leading recovery region, the Americas (-27%).
Last year this figure was at -64%, so this is a marked improvement.
For tickets issued between Jan. 1 and March 18, 2022, for long-haul travel for any time in the future versus 2019 levels, the list was dominated by West African cities and countries: Ivory Coast, Nigeria and Ghana.
Travelers are mostly visiting for leisure travel (69%). Business travel accounts for 12% of visitors and visiting friends and family is another 12%.