South Africa ended 2025 with its highest-ever annual tourist arrivals but more work needs to be done to recover arrivals from overseas markets, which are still 8.5 behind pre-COVID 2019 levels.
Total arrivals for the year stood at 10.498 million, exceeding 2018s previous record high of 10.472 million, according to Statistics South Africas latest International Tourism Report.
However, overseas arrivals despite recording a solid year-on-year growth of 12 from 2024 are at 91.5 of 2019. South Africas inbound tourism recovery is progressing, but it remains incomplete and less robust than recent headline narratives suggest, said SATSA CEO David Frost . Frost said that measured against the peak overseas arrivals year of 2017, current performance represented an 88 recovery. Framing current performance as a historic achievement risks overstating progress and obscuring the reality of where the sector truly stands.
