Vacationing was the main reason for tourists to visit South Africa in 2014, with a significant majority of 95.7% of tourists on holiday, while business travel and students made up less than 4% of tourists.

However, foreign arrivals declined by 0.4% in 2014 and South African resident departures increased by 4.2%.

Tourism Minister Derek Hanekom said last month that new visa regulations imposed by Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba had an impact on tourism and investments entering the country.

He added that that there was clearly a worrying decline in the number of tourists coming into the country and, while he supported the effort to improve entry and exit security at the borders‚ “we’ve got to find a better way of doing it”.

Business Unity South Africa (Busa) CEO Khanyisile Kweyama echoed the Minister’s statement and revealed that Busa had met with Gigaba in April to discuss its concerns over the unintended consequences of the new visa regulations.

“Busa reiterates its concerns over the negative impact of the regulations on the tourism industry and related sectors, which will ultimately harm the country’s economic growth. Busa welcomes government’s inter-Ministerial Committee on migration to review the new visa regulations and looks forward to engaging with both the Ministers of Home Affairs and Tourism to find a lasting solution,” she said.

She added that Busa acknowledged the importance of balancing both national security issues and growing the tourism industry that created much-needed jobs.

Statistics South Africa released the yearly tourism report for 2014 on Tuesday. It is based on population movements through South Africa’s ports of entry and exit between January 1, 2014, and December 31, 2014.

Data on South African residents and foreign travellers that passed through South African air, land and sea ports of entry and exit last year was collected by Department of Home Affairs’ immigration officers.

About 40.31-million travellers – including South African residents and foreign travellers – entered or departed South Africa in 2014, an increase of 4.4% from the 38.61-million travellers in 2013.

Further, foreign arrivals comprised 3.7% of nonvisitors and 96.3% visitors.

Arrivals were further categorised into same-day visitors totalling 34.3% and overnight visitors or tourists totalling 65.7%. The volume of tourists increased by 0.1% from 9.54-million in 2013 to 9.55-million in 2014.

South Africa welcomed 74.3% of tourists from the Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries, while 23.6% and 1.9% of tourists were from overseas and other African countries respectively.

TRAVEL MODES AND BUSINESS
Overseas and other African country tourists entered the country by air, while tourists from the SADC countries entered by road.

Overseas business tourists were mainly from the UK and students were mostly from the US.

Residents of Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Lesotho made up the bulk of the business tourists from SADC countries and SADC students were mainly from Zimbabwe and Swaziland.

Tourists from other African countries who were on business or travelled to study were mainly from Nigeria.

This year, tourists from overseas and other African countries spent an average of five days in South Africa, compared with tourists from SADC who spent two days in the country.

At least 51.6% of tourists were male and about 89.6% of tourists were in the productive age group of 15 to 64 years.