TOURISM month coincided with the Department of Tourism’s appointment in September of a task force to find out how many inbound tourists visit the country each year.You would think that this statistic, so basic to any kind of planning, would be known. It’s not. Figures like 10-million are bandied about, but the real number is probably closer to 2-million. To put that in perspective, France attracts about 80-million visitors per year and it’s been around that level since 2012.The fact is, nobody understands the numbers. We can’t tell how many foreign tourists come here and there’s no way of measuring how much they spend. The confusion is partly due to the way SA counts the incomers: it makes no distinction between real tourists, business travellers, people who are merely passing through OR Tambo International on their way to other southern African destinations and, most important, the huge number of visitors from neighbouring countries who come here to trade. A useful first step would...
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