More work needed, despite record arrivals

Source: , 08/04/2016

More work needed, despite record arrivals
6 Apr 2016 _ Tourism Update
Despite the large number of arrivals, more work needs to be done.
While South Africa received a record 1 012 641 tourist arrivals in
January, exceeding the million tourists arrivals mark for the first
time ever, more work needs to be done for the country to recover lost
market share.
This is the opinion of Lee-Anne Bac, Director Advisory Services at
Grant Thornton.
"We welcome this notable level of growth for the first month of the
2016 year, albeit off a low base which was recorded in 2015," said
Bac. "A bumper month in January clearly indicates that the industry is
on the rebound, which bears testimony to the tourism sector`s
resilience and its ability to bounce back.
"The stats for January 2016 are outstanding and most certainly
encouraging," said Bac, adding: "We mustn`t become complacent though.
"The closest South Africa has ever been to this milestone was in
January 2014 when there were 949 000 tourists. In fact, for the entire
2015 year tourist arrivals to South Africa never even broke through
the 900 000 number in any month."
David Frost, CEO of SATSA, believes improvement in numbers lies in
action. "What we really need to do is get the action done,` he says,
adding that one of the key areas of competitiveness is ease of access.
Frost mentions visa regulations as being the greatest barrier to
tourism growth. "That`s the easy stuff – get rid of birth certificates."
Of the overseas visitors arriving in South Africa during January,
arrivals from China grew by a remarkable 93%. According to Grant
Thornton this is a result of changes in visa processing, which include
new visa processing centres, accredited travel company programmes and
specific visa exemptions.
"The significant growth in arrivals from China is a welcome relief and
it truly is an indication that the amendments to visa regulations for
the Chinese market are already starting to bear fruit," continued Bac.
However, she pointed out that these arrivals from China were still
lower than arrivals recorded in January 2012 and 2014, which she said
was indicative of more work to be done. According to the firm`s
calculation, if South Africa had not experienced the negative issue of
the visa regulations on the Chinese market in particular, the country
should have had about 2 500 more Chinese tourists in January 2016 than
was actually recorded.