The total number of travellers who visited South Africa through all its ports of entry during September was up 5,2% year-on-year (y/y) to 2,183-million from the 10,5% y/y growth recorded in August 2007, according to Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) data released on Thursday.
However, a month-on-month decrease of 1,7% was recorded.
The number of foreign travellers who departed from South Africa in September was 661 091, which is an increase of 6,4% from 621 562 recorded in September 2006.
The number of foreign arrivals was reported up 7,9% y/y to 754 272.
Stats SA data show that more than three-quarters (75,6%) of foreign arrivals were from Africa while less than one-quarter (23,6%) were from overseas countries.
A comparison of the changes between September 2006 and September 2007 indicates that the number of overseas arrivals increased by 3,7% from 172 096 in 2006 to 178 380 in 2007. Arrivals from Africa increased by 8,8% from 523 946 in September 2006 to 570 268 in September 2007.
Overseas travellers came mainly from Europe (60,5%) followed by North America (15,5%), Asia (12,6%), Australasia (6,6%), Central and South America (2,9%) and the Middle East (1,9%). Virtually all arrivals (97,6%) from Africa came from the Southern African Development Community countries.
The data shows the number of travellers from overseas countries has been increasing gradually since September 2005. Data indicates that the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany, The Netherlands, Australia, France, India and China were the eight leading overseas source countries. Travellers from these eight countries constitute 67,5% of all travellers from overseas. The number of travellers from these overseas countries increased — with the exception of Germany (-3,5%) and The Netherlands (-0,8%) in September 2007 compared to September 2006.
The data on overseas travellers showed 102 334 males and 75 852 females.
The arrival data on South African residents show that 41,9% came by air and 57,9% by road. For their departure, 43,8% and 56,1% used air and road transport respectively. When taking into consideration the countries of residence of travellers, it was found that for foreign arrivals, overseas travellers generally used air (87%) compared to road transport (12,5%) whereas travellers from Africa used road (90,2%) more than air transport (7,8%). ‒ I-Net Bridge