Jerry Mabena, chairman of the Tourism Business Council of SA , speaking at the opening of the 3rd TBCSA Leadership Conference in Sun City yesterday. Picture: SuppliedSouth Africa’s tourism industry is pinning its hopes on structural reforms embarked on by the Government of National Unity to attract 15.6 million international arrivals by 2030.
“As we all know, we have a vision of growing our international arrivals to 15 million over the next couple of years. We are moving in the right direction toward achieving this goal. Data from Stats SA shows that last year, we welcomed over eight million international guests into our country. According to recent economic data, the GNU has improved business confidence in a number of sectors, including retail, manufacturing, financial services and others.
Earlier this month, the Airports Company of South Africa said it anticipated passenger travel through airports to return to 2019 levels in the current fiscal year, with aircraft landings recovering to 92% of 2019 levels, up from 85% in 2023, while domestic and regional recovery reached 94% and 99% of pre-pandemic levels, respectively.