South Africa’s much-anticipated stats for the tourism peak month of December 2022, show that recovery of inbound arrivals from overseas were at 74% of December 2019 levels. For the entire year, total arrivals were at just 56% of 2019, indicating that the country’s recovery has lagged behind that of the rest of Africa and the global average of 65%.

The country recorded 190 667 arrivals in December, bringing the total for the year up to just over 1.45 million compared with 2.61 million in 2019.

SATSA and FEDHASA pointed out that the UK had re-established its place as South Africa’s top source market in 2022 but the number of arrivals from the UK were 35% less than the 2019 figure.    

Full-year arrivals from the US, the second-largest source market, were 29.8% less than in 2019, and those from Germany, the third-largest source market, were 46% less. 

Other source markets to make slower recoveries included Italy (-50%), France (-54%), Brazil (-81%) and Asia in general (-62%).

Click here to view our interactive data of the latest stats.