StatsSA has released the December 2022 figures on tourist arrivals.
SATSA and FEDHASA have compiled a summary of the tourist arrival statistics and some key insights derived from the StatsSA release.
The results of the SATSA and FEDHASA festive season survey will be made available within the next few days.
Summary and insights:
- Global recovery and African recovery average is 65% of pre-pandemic levels (but this includes Asia which has only recently reopened) Source UNWTO
- South Africa’s Jan to Dec figures are 44% behind pre-pandemic levels (Jan to Dec 2019), indicating that our recovery has been slower than in the rest of Africa and most regions in the world (see attached UNWTO graph)
- Highlights:
- UK has regained its #1 spot as our primary source market, but 2022 figure is 35% behind 2019 figure
- US is our second-largest source market but 2022 figure is 29.8% behind 2019 figure
- Our top 10 source markets post COVID – some new entrants:
- UK
- US
- Germany
- Netherlands
- France
- India
- Australia
- Belgium (increased airlift by Air Belgium)
- Switzerland
- Angola
- Source markets that have been slower to come back (2022 vs 2019) incl some of our previous top 10 source markets: Italy (-50%), France (-54%), Brazil (-81%), Asia in general for obvious reasons (-62%)
- Cape Town recovery has been better than the rest of the country (for December) in comparison with both OR Tambo (-29%) and KSIA (-35%):
- Total numbers behind only 4% of Dec 2019 figure
- SA resident numbers behind 5.4% of Dec 2019 figure
- Foreign traveller numbers behind 3.9% of Dec 2019 figure
- Interesting that cruising numbers are actually higher in Dec 2022 than in Dec 2019 – up 5.6% illustrative of Cape Town cruise strategy.
- December 2022 appear to indicate we are catching up on pre-pandemic figures with the Dec 22 gap being 31% of Dec 19 levels.
