More than 9m SA visitors in 2012

The total number of arrivals and departures has increased steadily since 2004.

Visitors from leading overseas countries increased across the board year-on-year‚ with visitors from the United Kingdom holding the largest proportion followed by the USA‚ Germany and China respectively.

OR Tambo international airport welcomed the bulk of foreign tourists with 82.3% of arrivals into the country landing there‚ compared with 12.1% at Cape Town International and 1.7% at King Shaka International.

The distribution of tourists by region of residence followed the similar pattern as shown in previous years. Thus a high proportion (70.2%) of tourists were residents from the SADC countries; 27.3% and 2.3% from overseas and 'other' African countries respectively. Holidays continued to be the main reason for visiting South Africa.

An overwhelming majority (90.4%) of tourists came for holidays while business persons and students constituted less than 4% of the 2012 tourists. Overseas business tourists were mainly UK residents and the students were mostly USA residents‚ the data indicated.

In 2012 tourists from overseas and "other" African countries spent on average five days per month in South Africa compared with tourists from SADC who spent three days.

Tourists continued to be predominantly male (50.8%) and about 89.8% of the 2012 tourists were in the productive age group of 15 to 64 years.

A total of 35‚291‚559 travellers - both South African residents and foreign travellers - entered or departed South Africa in 2012‚ - an increase of 3.5% from the 2011 number of 34‚105‚393.