SA a `fire sale` for tourists after rand rout

Source: Fin24, 26/07/2016

Johannesburg - Tourists are flocking back to South Africa`s game
parks, beaches and vineyards as a weaker currency and easing of visa
rules make holidays cheaper and more accessible.


The number of visitors to South Africa from outside the continent
increased by 19% over the five months through May, the Tourism
Ministry said on July 20.


The surging popularity among travellers from markets including the US
and Germany can be largely attributed to a weak rand, according to the
head of Africa`s largest hotels and casinos company, Tsogo Sun
Holdings.


"South Africa is on an absolute fire sale," Tsogo chief executive
officer Marcel Von Aulock said in an interview in Bloomberg`s
Johannesburg office this month. "We`ve always been a cheap destination
relative to international markets," and the falling currency has taken
that to extremes, he said.


South Africa`s international tourism boom represents a rare note of
optimism in an economy hampered by an unemployment rate of 27% and
projected by the SA Reserve Bank not to grow this year amid low
commodity prices and after the worst drought in more than a century.



The rand is the third-worst performer against the dollar among 16
major currencies tracked by Bloomberg over the past 12 months, having
declined 12%, and reached record lows against both the US currency and
euro earlier in 2016. While the currency had firmed to R14.3125
against the dollar as of 08:34 on Tuesday, that`s still weaker than
its level in November.


The government has softened rules introduced in 2014 that required
travellers from countries including China to apply for visas in
person, hurting demand in one of its fastest-growing tourism markets.


For prospective visitors from China, for example, that meant
an often lengthy and costly trip to either Beijing or Shanghai.


Those restrictions, together with a condition that visitors
accompanied by children must present a detailed birth certificate,
contributed to a slowdown in international tourism arrivals in 2015.



With visas now easier to obtain through tour operators, Chinese
numbers were 50% higher in May than a year earlier, while those from
India increased by 37%, according to the Tourism Ministry.


"Those markets will recover quite quickly, I think, and will continue
to grow," Von Aulock said.


While the birth-certificate rule has been relaxed, the entry
requirements for children remain vague enough to deter some families,
said Mmatsatsi Ramawela, CEO of the Tourism Business Council of South
Africa. And although overseas tourist arrivals in 2016 to date are up
from the past two years, they are still only the highest since 2013,
according to Statistics South Africa data.


Events like the International Aids Conference in Durban this month
have increased the number of visitors, and concerns that terrorist
attacks have made Europe more dangerous are also diverting traffic to
the southern hemisphere, Ramawela said.


City Sightseeing, which operates hop-on-hop-off city tour buses, has
sold more tickets in Cape Town this year and has had to add vehicles
and drivers on some days, according to general manager Paul Nel.


Additional direct flights to the city have helped traffic, he said,
with Emirates adding a third daily service between Cape Town and Dubai
earlier this month.