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The latest tourism and migration data released by Statistics SA this week reflects the latest from the local tourism industry as SA knew it, according to Lee-Anne Bac, director of the specialized tourism unit at international consulting firm BDO.
The World Travel and Tourism Council estimates that the SA tourism industry provided jobs to more than 700,000 people last year.
If it weren’t for the coronavirus pandemic (Covid-19), BAC says it would have been positive about the data reflected during the first two months of the year, especially if Chinese arrivals had remained at the same levels compared to the same period. previous year.
Data shows, for example, that the number of Chinese tourists visiting SA fell 39.7% in the first two months of the year compared to the same period last year. This was already indicative of the impact the spread of the coronavirus pandemic (Covid-19) was having in China, leading to travel restrictions.
At the same time, during the first two months of the year, there was growth in important source markets such as the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany.
However, it was the roughly 8,000 fewer tourists from China in January and February this year, compared to last year, impacting this year’s absolute numbers.
“While visitor arrivals in the first two months of the year were not surprising and nothing to write home about, at least it shows that SA still had a tourism industry at the time. Now we have nothing,” says Bac.
Even with President Cyril Ramaphosa announcing on Thursday night that there will be an ease at the level of closure restrictions beginning in late April, the tourism industry is unlikely to reap immediate benefits. International travel, for example, will continue to be prohibited, as well as travel between provinces, except in exceptional circumstances such as funerals.
South African tourism is compiling a tourism recovery plan in an attempt to limit the damage suffered by the industry due to the pandemic and the blockade.
“It is terrifying. The reality is that many companies in the tourism industry will not survive. We have to be realistic. It is tragic, especially since the industry created so many jobs,” says Bac.
Investec economist Lara Hodes said in a statement that the period covered by the latest data ended just before the first case of coronavirus reported in SA on March 5 and a few weeks before the national closure and travel bans basically closed. the local tourism industry.
In the first two months of the year, 1.7% more travelers (3,091,233 individuals) passed through the ports of entry and exit of SA compared to the same period last year. They were made up of 752,507 SA residents and 2,338,726 foreign travelers.
Travel by South African residents grew 2.9% y / y in February, while the number of foreign travelers (arrivals, departures, and transits) increased 1.3% y / y.
Of the foreign arrivals in January and February, 1,218,468 consisted of 75,171 non-visitors and 1,143,297 visitors. Visitors consisted of 342,482 same-day visitors and 800,815 overnight visitors (tourists).
Of the tourists, 248,037 were foreigners; 538,349 from SADC countries; 13 027 from other African countries and the country of residence of 1 402 tourists were classified as unspecified.
Fin24 already reported that SA’s luxury tourism sector was devastated by the impact of the pandemic and the blockade.
Industry comments have been that it is pinning its hopes on the domestic tourism market to lead the way to recovery in a post-coronavirus world. This is despite the anticipation that South Africans will have liquidity problems.
