Is South Africa's significant tourism growth sustainable?

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“The 10.04 million overnight tourists that visited our country during 2016 is certainly impressive and it’s a good step in the right direction,” she says.

In reality

She highlights that of the 10 million overnight tourists, 2.5 million were from overseas and the balance, 7.5 million, came from Africa. The number of overseas tourists grew by an impressive 18% compared to 2015 while African arrivals, which comprises the lion’s share of tourists recorded during 2016, grew by 11%.

But, Bac warns that these figures need to be reviewed in context so that a more realistic picture of South Africa’s performance in the tourism industry can be assessed. “It’s important to properly consider the decline of nearly 7% of overnight tourists which we recorded during 2015 compared to 2014, with overseas tourists down by nearly 5% during that year,” Bac says.

When analysing tourist arrivals to South Africa, Bac notes that the compound growth figures are very important.

“In reality, our nation’s compound growth in tourist arrivals over the past four years, between 2012 and 2016, is only 3.9% per annum, which is below the long-term worldwide average for international tourism arrivals which is between 4%-4.5%,” she adds. “Fortunately our compound growth for overseas tourist arrivals during that same period is higher at 4.8%, but this is still regarded as a slow, pedestrian growth figure.”

Bac says that 2016’s growth did well to ‘right-size’ the poor growth recorded in prior years when South Africa’s tourism sector was performing significantly below the global average.

The red flags in South Africa’s bumper 2016 year of tourism

The 2016 tourism data highlights that three of South Africa’s key target markets did not perform consistently over the course of the year. Influenced by the Brexit decision mid-year and by the Rand’s strength towards the end of the year, the United Kingdom, which is the country’s largest overseas source market, only grew by 9,9% for the year in 2016.

“China – although achieving excellent growth overall for the year at 38%, in the last quarter this market was actually in decline (-2%),” adds Bac. “This was probably as a result of South Africa’s significant growth in the last quarter of 2015 which was difficult to match in the final three months of 2016.” Similarly, demand from India showed annual growth of nearly 22%, despite only recording a 7% growth in the last quarter of the 2016 year.

Bac’s analysis also reveals that the good growth which South Africa recorded in 2016 was driven to a large extent by the weakness of the Rand. “The key question when looking ahead is whether 18% growth in overseas tourist arrivals is sustainable, particularly now that our ZAR currency has strengthened?” she asks. “When we look at the final two months of 2016, unfortunately, it doesn’t look like this rate of growth is going to be possible.”

The tourism data highlights that overseas tourist arrivals only increased by 13% during November and by 11 % in December last year.

2017 is unlikely to see significant growth in tourist arrivals

Bac states that evidence from last year’s data indicates that 2017 is unlikely to see significant growth in tourist arrivals and that South Africa is likely to fall back to average levels of growth (around 4% to 5%).

She highlights that, there are alternative circumstances which may positively impact 2017’s tourism growth:

1. South Africa’s ZAR currency once again weakens against major global currencies; and/or
2. Competitive countries are no longer attractive as tourist destinations; and/or
3. Something truly dramatic and different is put into action in order to attract tourists to South Africa.

“Only the third point above is within our own control. We need to invest in tourism, just like in any other industry, to make sure that the number of arrivals increase significantly and hence add real value to our citizen economy for the benefit of our people in the form of jobs and business activity,” Bac concludes.