South Africa has finally breached pre-COVID tourism levels after recording a 35.8 year-on-year surge in international arrivals in the month of October although arrivals from overseas are still around 10 behind those recorded in 2019.
According to Statistics South Africas latest International Tourism Report, total arrivals between January and end-October hit over 8.56 million, representing a 2 increase from the equivalent 2019 figure.
Overseas arrivals for the period totalled just over 1.9 million still 9.4 behind the 2019 figure of 2.1 million. The largest source market region of Europe was 11 behind 2019 while North America exceeded pre-COVID levels by 4.5. Gains from Australasia and the Middle East 14 and 12 up on 2019 figures respectively were offset by a delayed return of arrivals from Asia down 31 and Central and South America down 20.