Close to 40% of international visitors to South Africa from November to January this year also visited Cape Town.

Over the period, 261 290 overseas visitors arrived at Cape Town International Airport, up from last year’s 251 569 during the same period. This compares with 670 575 overseas arrivals to South Africa during the same period.

Announcing the Western Cape tourism figures for the past season, Minister of Economic Opportunities, Alan Winde, said the province had experienced phenomenal growth with a major increase in the number of international visitors.

Deon Cloete, GM of Cape Town International Airport, said overall passenger numbers had shown robust growth in the past year. “On the international front, arriving passengers grew by 7% while the domestic arriving passengers grew by 10% for the same period.”

Cloete said in per annum figures, Cape Town International Airport was now handling around 9.6 million passengers, with its goal being 10 million passengers. “We hope that, as more direct flights into Cape Town are announced in the coming months, we will reach this target.”

With tourism having been earmarked as a sector under the provincial growth strategy of Project Phakisa, the increased figures were a definite indication that the region was moving in the right direction, said Winde. “We have seen an impressive 60% increase in origin and destination (O&D) passengers coming through Qatar going from 34 951 to 55 772 passengers. Also the number of O&D passengers from Turkey has increased by 53% from 36 348 to 55 714.”

European markets continue to make up a significant portion of tourist arrivals into Cape Town, accounting for about 45% of arrivals. Increases had been noted from Germany, The Netherlands and France, said Winde, who added that the number of Indian, African and Chinese visitors plummeted due to the stringent visa regulations implemented by the national government in 2015.

“You can clearly see the uplift in the number of Chinese arrivals since the intervention around the visas was implemented.  Our numbers look good but these numbers would have been far higher if the visa restriction had not taken place, especially in light of the favourable rand-dollar exchange rate.”

He said while the issues around the visa restrictions were not completely resolved and that he and other role-players were still involved in discussions with the Department of Home Affairs (Winde indicated he would meet with Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba on Thursday this week), already the figures for China in particular were improving. “In China, passenger numbers on bookings are up 52% between April and August 2016,” he said.

Looking more closely at the province he said visitors to the V&A Waterfront had continued to increase, with a total of 11.8 million people recorded between November last year and March this year. “This is up by 5.8% from the same period in the previous year. Kirstenbosch also reported a 1.3% increase, logging 466 646 visitors.”

Winde said an encouraging turnaround was that of visitors to Robben Island. “We are starting to see a reversal in the downward trend in visitor numbers to the island. In the past five months just under 200 000 people visited the World Heritage Site – a 24% increase in visitor numbers.”

Other attractions in the province that had seen an increase in visitor numbers from November to March included the Table Mountain National Park (15.6%), Boulders (18.9%), Cape of Good Hope (17.5%), the West Coast National Park (16.3%), Agulhas National Park (20%) and Bontebok National Park (17%).

Winde said while final figures were not yet available, indications were that one of Cape Town’s biggest attractions – Table Mountain Aerial Cableway – had also increased its number of visitors. “The cableway is, however, a difficult indicator as it can be severely impacted by wind and then has to close for safety reasons.”

Of increasing importance to the province, said Winde, was addressing the issue of seasonality. “When it comes to increasing air access to Cape Town and encouraging airlines to launch more direct flights, it is important that we counter seasonality, which we are starting to break into it. It is also why the United States is so exciting as it is one of those markets that does not show seasonality. In fact, it is very insensitive to seasonality and that is the exact traffic that we need.”

He said in this regard he was happy to announce that US passenger bookings for the period between April and August this year were up by 23%, from 10 844 to 13 301. “The length of stay of US passengers coming to Cape Town is also up 16% over the same period for stays of at least 22 days.”

Also in Europe, the United Kingdom, Germany and The Netherlands passenger numbers on bookings were up 18%, 19% and 44% respectively, he said.