Despite a decline in the number of international tourists visiting South Africa in February, recent statistics reveal an encouraging trend in the tourism industry's recovery.

Month-on-month the rate of growth in travelers, between January and February fell, which is not surprising given that February falls outside peak season. Yet, the year-on-year growth numbers were solid.

Statistics South Africa’s most recent figures show that, when measured in current prices, income for the tourist accommodation industry increased by 12.1% in January 2025 compared with January 2024. This, it said, was due to a 4.5% increase in the number of nights each person stayed, and an 11.7% increase in the average income per stay unit night sold.

Hotels saw the biggest increase, the print showed.

In addition, accommodation income also increased in the three months to January of this year when compared to the same period a year ago.

Pleasingly, year-on-year, February showed a high single digit rate of an increase in international tourists – indicating a movement towards pre-Covid-19 rates. This is despite 2024 being marred by elections across the globe, which would have resulted in travelers being less confident about holidays and other trips.

When compared to last February, international arrivals gained 7.3%, even though this was a 21.8% month-on-month decline.

Addressing the media towards the end of February, on the traffic during December and January, Airports Company of South Africa (ACSA) CEO, Mpumi Mpofu, said total passengers were above the state-owned enterprise’s target by 1%.

This figure shows a steady increase in the number of passengers, given that ACSA’s 2024 annual report noted that, for the year to March, its passenger traffic had rebounded to 88% of pre-pandemic levels during the reporting period. This was partially driven by new services originating from both the new and established markets.

However, said Mpofu, there was a need for the airline industry to increase the number of aircraft in the air to continue growing travellers. About a quarter of international visitors to South Africa come in by air.

Towards the end of February, Minister of Tourism Patricia de Lille said there was a need to market more air routes to South Africa.

De Lille said, on the final day of Meetings Africa 2025 in Sandton, “We need to harness the power of collaboration to increase air connectivity into and out of South Africa, and domestically”.

She added that “as a country, we can’t just trade on our ‘looks’ anymore. We have great beauty in our country, but when it comes to attracting travellers, we’ve got a lot of competition out there and we can’t afford to be complacent.”

Mpofu said, that despite issues such as high inflation and fiscal tightening having driven a slowdown in the domestic market, ACSA had seen a 91% recovery in passengers when compared with 2019.

Mpofu added that “if people are uncertain about elections in their own countries, they tend not to travel”.

According to IATA, global air travel reached a significant milestone in February 2024, with passenger traffic levels surpassing pre-pandemic levels by over 5%. However, variations in recovery rates across regions underscore the ongoing imbalances in global economic recovery efforts. The opening of the aviation market in China for international travel, and a strong global demand for leisure travel, brought in some stability.

Currently, it is impossible to determine how tourism will have affected GDP in absolute figures. However, it has doubtless grown its share, especially if other sectors (such as mining and manufacturing) are contributing less.

Dr Azar Jammine, director and chief economist at Econometrix explained that around three-quarters of international tourists were from other African countries, such as Zimbabwe, Angola, and Mozambique.

Such visitors, he said, are not the people who contribute massively to gross domestic product, with tourists from territories such as the UK and Europe, where the exchange rate is advantageous when compared with the rand, having a larger impact.

In 2022, the tourism sector directly contributed 3.5% to South Africa's GDP, a recovery from 2.3% in 2021 and 2.1% in 2020, but still below the pre-pandemic level of 3.7% in 2019.