During December, a record more than 400 000 visitors explored Western Cape and Cape Town attractions.

This included the Table Mountain Aerial Cableway, Table Mountain National Park: Cape of Good Hope, Table Mountain National Park: Boulders, Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden and Robben Island.

Table Mountain National Park: Boulders registered an impressive year-on-year growth of 21.9%, with Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden seeing an increase of 5.5% and Robben Island by 2.8% during December.

Western Cape regional attractions, including the Harold Porter National Botanical Garden, Cape Agulhas Lighthouse, Arniston Hotel & Spa, !Khwa ttu, Shipwreck Museum and Panthera Africa recorded a foot count of nearly 20 000 visitors cumulatively.

The Harold Porter National Botanical Garden saw a 17.7% year-on-year growth rate in December, and a positive increase in visitor numbers to the Cape Agulhas Lighthouse of 5.1%, Arniston Hotel & Spa of 2.0% and !Khwa ttu of 3.9% in December.

This is according to the monthly tourism report, compiled by the Western Cape Government’s trade, investment, and tourism promotion agency, Wesgro.

Other highlights from the report include:

• Cape Town International Airport’s International terminal saw a 17% year-on-year growth in December.
• For the full year 2023, the international terminal registered a 48% growth in relation to 2022, with 2.8 million two-way international passengers. This figure is yet again record-breaking, surpassing the previous benchmark of 2.6 million passengers recorded in 2019.
• The domestic terminal recorded a 21% year-on-year growth for December, with 688 000 passengers.
• The total domestic passenger growth for 2023 has remained steady at 16%, compared with the same period in 2022, welcoming just under 6.9 million passengers for the year.

“Across the Western Cape, and especially in Cape Town, our expectations of a record-breaking summer season have been realised. This is excellent news for our provincial economy and for the hundreds of thousands of jobs supported by tourism in the province,” said Provincial Minister of Finance and Economic Opportunities, Mireille Wenger.

“Following what has been a record-breaking tourism season for our province, we must all harness this momentum towards further growing our economy in 2024. This bumper season was made possible by the thousands of hard-working hospitality staff, backed by the multiple law enforcement bodies and disaster management officials who ensured that visitors to our province, as well as residents, were safe. I look forward to us all maintaining this positive economic momentum into upcoming tourism seasons, like the upcoming school-term holidays. Through this, we can create even more jobs,” concluded Western Cape Premier, Alan Winde.