Africa is the next tourism frontier and SA needs to cash in
The CEO of SA Tourism says local tourism is buoyant again with overseas tourists rising 14% in January
Africa is on track to become the next tourism frontier, South African Tourism CEO Sisa Ntshona said, speaking ahead of the launch of Indaba 2017, a travel show which will bring more than 7,000 delegates from around the word. The continent as a whole reported an 8% surge in international arrivals in 2016, with Sub-Saharan Africa increasing 11% and SA by an impressive 13%. The local tourism sector seems buoyant again after a few years of uncertainly, largely due to the new visa regime which placed onerous requirements on travellers. Figures released by Statistics SA this week show that overseas tourist numbers to the country rose 14% to 245,074 in January 2017 compared with January 2016. Tourism contributes about 9% to SA’s GDP. "Last year, we broke records to reach 10-million international tourists coming to SA," said Ntshona. "These figures far exceed the global increase in international arrivals of 3.9% overall. So Africa is definitely the happening place to be, with vast untapped ...
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