Tourism figures are important not only for those in the industry, but also an indicators of the overall South African economy.
In the April 2019, Tourism and Migration Report released by Statistics South Africa, there is an insight into traveller numbers into and out of the country.
The month of April is compared to the previous month as well as April 2018.
In April 2019, the distribution of overseas tourists was as follows:
- Europe, 134 273 (61,8%)
- North America, 32 950 (15,2%)
- Asia, 24 952 (11,5%)
- Australasia, 11 889 (5,5%)
- Central and South America, 8 954 (4,1%)
- The Middle East, 4 113 (1,9%)
The ten leading overseas countries in terms of the number of tourists visiting South Africa in April 2019:
- United Kingdom 39 755 (18,3%)
- United States of America 27 760 (12,8%)
- Germany 25 823 (11,9%)
- France 14 275 (6,6%)
- The Netherlands 11 273 (5,2%)
- Australia 10 615 (4,9%)
- India 8 534 (3,9%)
- China 6 712 (3,1%)
- Belgium 5 777 (2,7%)
- Brazil 5 534 (2,5%)
The report also confirms that "virtually all tourists from Africa, 671 079 (98,0%), came from the SADC countries."
The ten leading SADC countries in terms of the number of tourists visiting South Africa in April 2019:
- Zimbabwe, 199 611 (29,7%)
- Lesotho 144 143 (21,5%)
- Mozambique 100 392 (15,0%)
- Swaziland, 90 022 (13,4%)
- Botswana 75 903 (11,3%)
- Namibia 20 030 (3,0%)
- Malawi 13 647 (2,0%)
- Zambia, 13 571 (2,0%)
- Angola, 5 004 (0,7%)
- Tanzania, 3 025 (0,5%)