A stark contrast in overseas arrivals performance between Cape Town (CPT) and OR Tambo (JNB) international airports has underlined the urgency for South Africa to develop a national air access strategy as a basis for diversification of tourism across the country.
In the first seven months of 2025, overseas arrivals at CPT were up by 21% – around 91 000 passengers – from the comparative period in 2019, as highlighted in the BDO Tourism Trends Report. In direct contrast, international arrivals to JNB were down by 21% – around 175 000 passengers – for the same period. The shift is indicative of notable disparities in destination marketing, investment and public-private sector coordination, according to tourism experts.
“The underlying dynamics reflect differentiated destination marketing, air connectivity and market perception of Cape Town,” said Rob Hetem, Director of Strategic Development at T-Cubed Consulting. “Cape Town’s rise as South Africa’s international gateway is a testament to decades of effective brand building and strong connectivity and it also highlights how unevenly tourism dividends can accrue when marketing, air access and perception align in one place.”
SATSA CEO David Frost said Cape Town’s established reputation has been supported by a robust route development marketing drive.
“Much success can be attributed to the Cape Town Air Access project’s strategic targeting of key source markets and, importantly, to the natural evolution of travel patterns post-pandemic where travellers are seeking direct access to their primary destination,” said Frost.
He pointed out that, as Africa’s primary business hub, Johannesburg’s sluggish recovery is linked to the slower pace of global corporate travel compared to leisure.
“OR Tambo has also historically served as the continental hub with many international arrivals transiting to other African destinations – a dynamic that has shifted as airlines establish more point-to-point routes across the continent,” Frost added.
Lee-Anne Bac, Advisory Partner: Tourism at BDO, said Cape Town has additionally benefitted from a whole-of-government approach to promoting tourism.
“We really need to have everybody – going beyond members of the tourism industry to political leaders – singing tourism and that’s what happens in Cape Town and the Western Cape.”
Need for national air access strategy
Frost emphasised that, while the Gauteng Air Access project has made meaningful progress, the real opportunity lies in creating an integrated national air access strategy that encourages airlines to view South Africa holistically.
“What South Africa needs now is not competition between air access initiatives but strategic coordination that positions each airport as a gateway to different regional experiences. This means developing compelling multi-destination itineraries that incentivise visitors to explore beyond their point of entry whether that’s using Cape Town as a gateway to the Garden Route and Eastern Cape or OR Tambo as the starting point for experiences in Limpopo, Mpumalanga or the Free State.”
Hetem said, during a recent trip across the Middle East, T-Cubed Consulting actively promoted geographic spread – encouraging itineraries beyond Cape Town – but with little success.
“Despite positive engagement with leading wholesalers, DMCs and retail agents, the uptake was muted. When presented with outstanding wildlife experiences, coastal resorts and world-class gastronomy elsewhere in the country, the response was often the same: ‘Yes but the mountain — and the wine’ People know Cape Town,” said Hetem.
The geographic spread problem is compounded by the fact that private-sector tourism businesses face intense return on investment scrutiny in their destination marketing initiatives, according to Hetem.
“With limited budgets and reputational risk, few can afford to pioneer untested products or regions without strong destination marketing alignment and assurance of guest satisfaction. This creates structural inertia: the well-known continues to perform because it is safe to sell and the untested continues to lag because it’s costly to promote,” Hetem said.
SA Tourism lacks the resources to drive the levels of coordinated destination promotion needed to meet geographic spread objectives, he added.
“Until that gap is addressed, the market will default to the tried and tested.”
