Cape Town leads resurgent tourism sector

Cape Town remains the crown jewel of the South African tourism sector as it goes through a strong recovery from the Covid pandemic.

Nevertheless, Durban’s tourism market showed resilience as it fought off headwinds such as flooding and beach-water contamination to post a strong showing.

This is according to tourism and hospitality insiders, including companies and associations, as well as statistics on the country’s tourism and travel trends for December last year.

Southern Sun CEO Marcel von Aulock told Business Times that the overall December trends showed growth in leisure activity from about mid-month onwards, but the group saw some weakness in the conference business in the first half of December. 

“Cape Town was really the standout for December and the good trading conditions have continued into 2024. We saw activity from both domestic, leisure and business travel and then a significant amount of international visitors as well, so all segments were doing nicely,” he said.

Sandton and surrounds in Gauteng performed better than expected, while KwaZulu-Natal saw strong trading at Umhlanga properties and the Drakensberg Sun Resort, though the Durban beachfront was more subdued, again particularly in the early part of the month as group and conference business underperformed.

“Cape Town is expected to continue to have a great season for international travel and has a pretty full calendar of events for the remainder of the year at the Cape Town International Convention Centre. The Southern Sun Cullinan is getting a full refurbishment this winter as we expect next summer to be as good, or better, than this season,” Von Aulock said.

Southern Sun was seeing good activity levels at the Sandton Convention Centre and it hopes for a better 2024 in the Johannesburg region. The Sandton Towers will also be getting a full refurbishment starting in late April, Von Aulock added. 

His team are also forecasting a decent February and March for the Durban and Umhlanga areas “and we are very focused on expanding in the Umhlanga area”, he said. 

Presenting tourism statistics for December, StatsSA said South Africa had welcomed 1,183,035 foreign arrivals. Of these, 297,585 were same-day visitors, and 862,460 stayed longer than a day. About 205,684 arrivals were from overseas destinations; 639,816 came from the Southern African region; 15,951 were from the rest of Africa; and 1,009 were of unspecified residence.

Of the overseas arrivals, 130,584 came from Europe, with the UK, Germany, the Netherlands and France providing the most tourists.

North America accounted for 38,517 tourists, with 33,027 from the US and 5,490 from Canada. Up to 655,767 of the December arrivals were from all over Africa, while 16,811 came from Asia, 11,802 from Australasia, and 2,560 from the Middle East.

Mpumi Mpofu, CEO of Airports Company South Africa (Acsa), said the company was on its way to a full recovery from the pandemic — with some of its airports exceeding projections — following a bustling and active peak and festive season.

“We are very pleased with Acsa’s recovery during the current financial year and during the peak period last year, with passenger volumes and aircraft movements reflecting a solid increase that has, in some cases, even exceeded our projections,” she said. 

Mpofu said that by year-end Acsa had managed to establish a solid recovery position, with the total air passenger traffic through its network having increased significantly, as well as recording a solid recovery to near pre-Covid passenger throughput. 

According to Acsa, December saw 3.5-million passengers passing through its airports, which exceeded its forecast of 3.4-million. Regional passenger volumes totalled 73,492, while domestic passenger volumes amounted to 2.4-million.

International passenger volumes rose to just over 1-million, breaching this mark for the first time since the pandemic, Acsa said. 

Total airline movements showed a 93% recovery and a 10% year-on-year growth for December 2023 and January 2024. Total international passenger traffic was 30% of the total market.

Rosemary Anderson, chair of the Federated Hospitality Association of Southern Africa (Fedhasa), said South Africa’s peak December 2023 tourism season showed signs of recovery, but conditions varied greatly by region.

She said the Western Cape saw strong demand in line with expectations, while KwaZulu-Natal showed unexpected resilience despite facing challenges threatening its key beach tourism assets.

“The Western Cape once again proved itself as the country’s premier domestic and international tourism destination this past December ... Given the recent pollution issues that impacted popular swimming beaches, we feared the worst [for KwaZulu-Natal] heading into the holiday season,” she said.

Anderson said the association was “pleasantly surprised” to see many establishments report better-than-expected occupancy and revenues over December. 

She credited KwaZulu-Natal’s tourism industry for effectively managing the negative publicity and offering alternative inland attractions and activities not affected by the water quality problems.

“The industry is doing all the hard work to provide quality service and support to guests and visitors. However, we depend on many factors outside our control to deliver a world-class tourism experience — like power, water, infrastructure and safety.”