The number of tourist arrivals rose by 4.2% year on year (y/y) in January to 887‚066 with the number of overseas tourists increasing by 3.8% y/y to 210‚253‚ Statistics SA (Stats SA) said on Monday.

On Thursday President Jacob Zuma said SA achieved a 10.2% growth in the number of international tourists last year‚ outstripping the average global growth rate of about 4% as estimated by the UN World Tourism Organisation.

A total of 9.2-million international tourists came to SA in 2012 compared with 8.3-million in 2011. They spent a total of R76.4bn‚ 7.6% more than in 2011.

President Zuma said the "phenomenal" growth in foreign tourism showed that SA was successfully setting itself apart in a competitive marketplace. It confirmed that the country's marketing efforts were on track though he warned against complacency in a highly competitive global industry.

He noted that since 2009 arrivals from China had more than tripled‚ those from Brazil (78‚376) more than doubled and from India (10‚677) had almost doubled.

Last year China jumped from being SA's eighth largest market in 2011 to fourth place.

In January 2013‚ the distribution of overseas tourists were as follows; Europe‚ 114‚320 (56.4%); Asia‚ 33‚914 (16.7%); North America‚ 26‚341 (13.0%); Central and South America‚ 14‚124 (7.0%); Australasia‚ 10‚371 (5.1%) and Middle East‚ 3‚478 (1.7%).

Virtually all tourists from Africa came from the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) countries at 625‚062 or 96.7% of the African total.

The UK was the top source country for overseas countries at 34‚392 (17.0%)‚ followed by the US 21‚330 (10.5%); Germany‚ 21‚101 (10.4%); China 11‚992 (5.9%) and Brazil‚ 9‚261 (4.6%).

A comparison between movements in January 2012 and January 2013 showed that the number of tourists increased in four (India‚ Brazil‚ USA and Canada) and decreased in six (UK‚ The Netherlands‚ Germany‚ Australia‚ China and France) countries.

India had the highest increase of 14.9% (from 7 196 tourists in January 2012 to 8 270 tourists in January 2013)‚ while UK had the largest decrease of 18.7% (from 42 284 tourists in January 2012 to 34 392 tourists in January 2013).

2013-04-29 14:03:02    Source: I-Net Bridge