Bumper year-end for domestic tourism

Hospitality and entertainment establishments will be laughing all the way to the bank thanks to South Africans taking a "Sho't Left". Tourism and hospitality authorities have predicted a "bumper year end for domestic tourism", ahead of updated festive season statistics, expected to be released next month.
Rohan_Reddy via  - Durban
Rohan_Reddy via pixabay - Durban

"While we do not yet have confirmed numbers for domestic travel in the 2016 festive season, we are encouraged by the trend we have seen so far for 2016," said Sisa Ntshona, head of SA Tourism. He said the latest statistics indicated that 12.7million domestic trips were taken in the first half of last year.

Sho't Left is a campaign aimed at encouraging locals to be tourists in their own country. "These domestic travellers spent R15.3-billion compared with 2015's spend of R9.1-billion in the same period. So South Africans are definitely travelling their own country."

Sun City, the Kruger National Park and the traditional holiday cities of Durban and Cape Town topped the list of favourite destinations.

"KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape are popular provinces visited by a lot of South African holidaymakers in the festive season. But we encourage South Africans to travel throughout our beautiful country."

Ntshona said the #StayinSA [social media] campaign - to encourage local travel - was "well received".

Tshifhiwa Tshivhengwa, head of the Federated Hospitality Association of SA, said: "In all of the major holiday cities like Durban, Cape Town, Port Elizabeth and East London, the numbers are looking good in terms of occupancy rates."

For the second quarter of 2016, Fedhasa said there was a 26% increase in leisure tourism.

Tshivhengwa said the different campaigns encouraging South Africans to travel locally and government's R110-million pledge towards the domestic tourism market have had a positive effect.

"The prime locations remain Sun City, Kruger National Park, Durban and Cape Town."

Source: The Times


 
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