South Africa’s travel and tourism industry is about a year behind the global post-COVID recovery curve, with the country’s inbound and outbound spending expected to reach the pre-COVID levels by 2025. However, full recovery in the number of travellers is not foreseen before 2027.
This was one of the key takeaways from the Euromonitor International ‘Open for Business’ report presented at the Tourism Business Council of South Africa (TBCSA) inaugural Tourism Leadership conference held at Sun City in the North West province last week.
Delivering the report was Euromonitor Consultant, Christele Chokossa, who highlighted that globally, inbound tourism spending was expected to grow by up to 84% in 2022. “However, full recovery in the number of trips globally is only expected from 2026,” she pointed out.
She noted that travellers across the globe still had health and safety concerns about travel, which would keep numbers subdued for a while.
The top five factors driving the decisions to travel were:
- Relaxation
- Safe destinations
- Nature and outdoor offerings
- Quality of food or gourmet destinations
- All-inclusive offerings
Spain, the US, Greece, France and Turkey, respectively, were identified as the top spending outbound markets globally.
The South African picture
Chokossa said in South Africa domestic tourism was still leading the charge in recovery, with more than 800 000 tourists expected to explore their own country this year.
“The fact that pricing has been adjusted and there are periodically great deals for South Africans to visit parts of their country – such as the Sho’t Left Travel Week during Tourism Month – has contributed to greater domestic support,” she said.
She noted, however, that current high domestic flight prices could hamper growth.
Euromonitor International projects that domestic tourism will continue to grow in South Africa, with annual domestic tourism numbers to surge to over 16m by 2027.
Domestic tourism trips reached just over 12 million in 2019.
Outbound departures by South Africans are projected to be around 700 000 this year, reaching over 1.4 million in 2027 – similar to the departures in 2019.
Inbound arrivals are expected to stabilise over the next five years and grow from the current 1 million projected for 2022 to 1.4 million in 2027 – also similar to the 2019 figures.
