Tourist arrivals from the UK were up 17% year on year for the month of July, while year to date, arrivals are now showing positive growth for the first time in months. As of the end of July, after seven months SA has seen 227 252 tourist arrivals from the UK, compared with 226 223 for the same period last year. That positive result stems from the surge in July when 25 120 visitors last year grew to 29 486 this July.
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This is according to the latest arrival stats published this week by Statistics South Africa. July was also the first month that overseas arrivals and tourist arrivals showed growth, with month-on-month growth of 2% and 1% respectively. Year to date, overseas arrivals are still down 9%.
The UK is South Africa’s largest source market, with 227 252 tourists arriving from the UK this year to date, compared with 166 759 from the US and 128 346 from Germany, South Africa’s second and third biggest markets. The market is also more than double the size of the entire Asian market, which has seen 133 519 arrivals to SA as of the end of July.
Tourism arrivals to South Africa took a knock last year. The decline has been attributed to the outbreak of Ebola in West Africa as well as new immigration regulations, particularly the requirement that people apply in-person for visas, which took effect last year, and the requirement that minors travel with an unabridged birth certificate, or the equivalent thereof, which took effect in June this year.
The British currency today buys 18 % more Rands than at the beginning of July last year. How much higher the growth would have been without the new regulations and Ebola is he question economists are asking.
The UK market was unaffected by the visa requirement and has also proved more resilient than other markets following the outbreak of Ebola.
