June 2010 Arrivals Double
New York, NY - South African Tourism has announced the USA visitor arrivals to South Africa for the summer months of May through August 2010, and the statistics confirm that tourism was one of the key beneficiaries of the successful hosting of the 2010 FIFA World Cup™. The United States was the largest purchaser of tickets to the World Cup after the host nation, South Africa.
South Africa saw record increases in US tourist arrivals of 16.2%, 98.9%, 9.7% and 35.2% for the four months of May, June, July and August, respectively. June, in particular, saw the number of tourist arrivals double, to twice the normal level in any given year. The healthy August arrivals also indicate that South Africa’s traditional consumers were waiting to visit until after the World Cup - a very positive trend which bodes well for the destination through the rest of the year. These positive increases bring South Africa’s year-to-date arrivals through August 2010 to 193,317, a growth of 26% over this same period in 2009.
“These numbers are quite encouraging and they put destination South Africa in good stead to close 2010 in positive territory,” said Sthu Zungu, President, South African Tourism, North America. “We are grateful for the support we received from our trade partners in the industry and from our colleagues at the South Africa Missions all over the United States, and we look forward to continued collaboration as we leverage the visibility and opportunities provided by the World Cup,” she concluded.
Global arrivals to South Africa surpassed expectations. Overseas arrivals, (excluding those from continental Africa), increased by 118% in June, 17% in July and 18% in August. Overall, global arrivals for the period January through August 2010 totalled 5,286,003, representing an increase of 17.4%, for an additional 782,000 visitors to South Africa over the same period last year. The destination is well on its way to meeting its target of 10 million visitor arrivals for 2010.