Tourism minister optimistic about growth in 2019
The end of Cape Town’s drought and the easing of travel requirements for minors will give a boost to tourist numbers
Tourism minister Derek Hanekom is bullish about the prospects for overseas tourism in 2019 now that the drought in Cape Town is over and the restrictive travel requirements for minors have been eased for some countries. These two factors will probably result in no growth in overseas tourist arrivals in 2018 compared to 2017, the minister said in an interview on Friday. This was the trend until the end of October for which there were statistics, while industry sources have indicated that overseas tourist arrivals in November and December had been fair, but not exceptional. The stagnant growth in 2018 comes despite the extremely strong increase in tourist numbers from Brazil and Argentina during the year, as well as increases from the US and Canada. Without the drought, there would have been even higher growth from these countries, Hanekom said. In 2017 overseas tourist arrivals grew by 7.2% to 2.7-million. Hanekom said that a concerted drive will be made in 2019 to increase the numbe...
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