Tourism to South Africa Sees Decline in First 7 Months of 2019

At a time when South Africa is looking for tourism to boost the economy, the news is not good. Five percent fewer foreigners visited the country in July 2019 compared to the same period a year ago, according to government figures released today.

Between January and July, the total number of foreigners visiting the country from outside Africa fell from 1,479,315 a year ago to 1,445,909 (2.3 percent); while the total with African countries fell from 6,008,445 to 5,885,384 (2 percent).

Notably, the number of transit passengers, who didn’t stay in the country, went up 21.8 percent (from 64,538 in July 2018 to 78,625).

The Department of Statistics said in a statement that the number of tourists decreased for nine of the 10 leading non-Africa countries, China, USA, India, Australia, France, Germany, Brazil, Belgium and UK.

China had the largest decrease, 21.3 percent (from 9,697 in July 2018 to 7,635 this year).

The Netherlands was the only one to see an increase, of 6.3 percent (from 17,624 to 18,741).

In July 2019, the distribution of overseas tourists was: Europe, 104,590; North America,
37,967; Asia, 23,746; Australasia, 10,435; Central and South America, 9,909; and
the Middle East, 5,630.