Overseas tourists flock back to sunny, diverse SA
Tourism Minister Derek Hanekom welcomes tourism sector's 'outstanding growth'
The tourism sector is on the rebound and recorded a significant rise in the number of visitors to SA in January 2017 compared with the same month a year ago. This is reflected in figures that Statistics SA released on Monday and which showed that overseas tourist numbers to the country rose 14% to 245,074 in January 2017 compared with January 2016. Visitors from France (34.1%), Sweden (28.6%) and China (28.3%) contributed to the rise. "This is excellent. We’re no longer comparing with a poor year. Last year we were coming off a very low base, this is dramatically different. The growth is outstanding," said Tourism Minister Derek Hanekom. Tourism contributes about 9% to GDP and was allocated an extra R494m in the February budget to help the sector grow. In January 2015, the picture was different when visitor numbers fell 6.8%, with many citing the introduction of a new visa regime that placed onerous requirements on travellers. "In 2015, [we] saw cancellations because of the Ebola ou...
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