German visitors to South Africa have increased by 15% according to the latest report released by Statistics SA.
The German market has shown a steady increase over the last few months, with arrivals up by 24% for the month of June compared with June last year.
Growth in May was 5% and April 15.91%.
There are many contributing factors to the steady increase in arrivals from this key source market, one being the attractive exchange rate when visiting SA, the country’s warmer climate and the similarity in dialect.
Peter Munzig, Managing Director of Travel Management & Consulting in Germany, said there had been a substantial increase in 2016 vs. 2015 in German arrivals, and tour operators had reported that they expected another increase this year.
According to Munzig, South Africa is popular for many reasons, including game viewing, the country’s diversity, countryside hotels and even its city life.
“The South African winter is a perfect time for tourists to visit, especially the Kruger National Park, as there are reasonable bus tours for those who prefer to travel in groups. A plus is definitely that you do not need any vaccinations for the Cape,” said Munzig.
“If the exchange rate continues to be favourable for foreign tourists, there is no limit to further increases in visitors,” concluded Munzig.
The Western and Eastern Cape are firm favourites for German visitors.
Minister of Tourism, Tokozile Xasa and South African Tourism (SAT) CEO, Sisa Ntshona, attended the Internationale Tourismus-Börse (ITB) Berlin earlier this year.
At the trade show there was a panel discussion on SA’s growth strategy and SA’s status as trend destination 2017, as well as the role Germany plays for the South African tourism sector, highlighting the importance of Germany as a key source market.
“In 2016 we attracted more than ten million tourists, who came to SA from various parts of the world, which is a 13% surge when compared with tourist arrivals in 2015 and well above the global average of 3.9%. Of these, 311 000 were Germans, making Germany our second-largest European source market after the United Kingdom,” added Ntshona.
“The number of German tourists coming to SA grew at an impressive rate of 21.5% and for this reason we are planning to train even more local tour guides to add to the 400-plus who already speak German in order for us to better cater for German tourists.”
Ntshona highlighted that the German tourism industry had rewarded South African Tourism’s outstanding service to travel agencies with a silver award at its Globus Travel Awards in January.
This article has been updated since first published.
