South Africa’s tourist arrival surges 17% in July despite xenophobia attacks

The number of foreign arrivals at South Africa’s ports rose 17.3% month on month to more than 1.27-million in July, a 6% increase over the same period last year.

Most tourists, 97.5%, were in the country on holiday versus 1.9% who came for business, 0.6% for study and less than 0.1% for medical treatment during the month, Stats SA said on Wednesday.

Tourists from the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) constituted 79.2% of all tourists in July, with Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Lesotho leading the pack, while other African countries accounted for 1.2%, with Kenya, Ghana and Nigeria contributing the bulk.

This reaffirms earlier data suggesting that anti-immigrant sentiment largely directed at undocumented African nationals, which culminated in protests in late June with some countries repatriating their citizens, has not significantly deterred visits to South Africa.

Wednesday’s report shows overseas visitors constituted 19.5% of all tourists in July, with the US, UK and the Netherlands collectively contributing 41% to this segment.

Most African tourists, 97.3%, came to South Africa for a holiday during the month. For overseas regions, Australasia had the highest proportion of tourists who came for holidays, followed by the Middle East, North America, Central and South America, Europe and Asia.

More than 91% of overseas tourists arrived in the country by air, while 8.6% came by road and less than 1% by sea. Sadc visitors came predominantly by road, with just 6.5% arriving by air.

Most tourists who arrived by road came through the Lebombo port in Mpumalanga, followed by Beitbridge on the border with Zimbabwe, while most tourists who landed by air entered through the OR Tambo and Cape Town international airports.

The government has identified tourism among the key sectors with the strongest potential to breathe more life into South Africa’s struggling economy and lift it to the growth levels of above 3% required to create jobs and reduce unemployment, currently at 33.6%.

Launching the third phase last week of a government-business partnership aimed at driving inclusive growth and economic transformation, President Cyril Ramaphosa said tourism was one of the fastest ways to generate jobs across a wide range of skills.

But he flagged barriers holding the sector back and called for urgent corrective measures, including improving air access, modernising visa processing, strengthening destination marketing, enhancing tourist safety and expanding investment in tourism infrastructure.

Stats SA data shows tourism sustained 954,000 direct jobs in 2024 and contributed 4.9% to GDP, outperforming sectors such as agriculture, utilities and construction.

Join BusinessDay whatsapp Channel, to stay up to date

Open In Whatsapp