/ 7 November 2014

Jo’burg is Africa’s top destination city

Jo'burg Is Africa's Top Destination City
Deeper concentration of human and economic activity has been proven an effective strategy to improve geographic convergence of living standards rather than targeted interventions to reduce spatial disparities at source.

“Johannesburg is set to be the most popular destination city in Africa for the second year, followed by Cape Town,” according to the latest destination index from MasterCard.

The study ranks 132 cities worldwide in terms of international visitor arrivals and their spending behaviour.

At least 4.3-million people are expected to have visited Egoli for business and pleasure by the end of 2014, a 4.9% increase over last year’s 4.1-million visitors.

They are expected to spend some $3.2-billion compared to $3.06-billion last year.

Most visitors to Johannesburg travelled from London, followed by Frankfurt, Harare, Maputo and Paris.

Johannesburg is followed by Cape Town which should hit 1.6-million international visitors spending around $2.3-billion as the second destination of choice in Africa.

“Having Johannesburg and Cape Town in the top two places in Africa is a great achievement for South African tourism,” said MasterCard’s South Africa Division President Mark Elliott.

Trailing behind Cape Town is Cairo in Egypt followed by Nigeria’s Lagos and in third place Casablanca in Morocco.

Globally, London tops the list as the most visited city for the third time, followed by Bangkok and then Paris – AFP