INTERNATIONAL travellers’ interest in South Africa is increasing as the kickoff date of the 2010 Fifa World Cup approaches, according to a new report highlighting international Visa cardholder spending in South Africa. This follows an online survey on South Africa’s tourism outlook conducted by Visa amongst 5 539 travellers (business and leisure) from 11 nations and who have travelled internationally in the past two years.  Announcing the results in Cape Town yesterday, Paul Wilke, Visa’s San Francisco-based senior business leader global corporate relations, said one in three international travellers intends to visit South Africa in future and that there is broad awareness of the country’s diverse attractions. This was encouraging, he said, as it meant that South Africa was top in the minds of travellers. He said 14% of respondents said they intended to attend the World Cup in South Africa next year. The most interest came from Brazil (46%), China (31%), South Korea (12%), Mexico (11%), Russia (11%) and the USA (9%). The majority of respondents who are likely to attend the World Cup also want to visit other parts of South Africa. Some 61% said they were interested in going on safari, 54% were keen to see key landmarks and 45% would tag-on a beach holiday in Cape Town or the Garden Route.  Some 88% said they would want to see more than one city. They also wanted to see Cape Town (63%), Johannesburg (49%), Pretoria (22%), Soweto (17%) and Polokwane (13%). Nearly 73% plan on visiting at least one other African country, the most popular being Kenya (35%), Angola (30%), Mozambique (27%) Tanzania (21%) and Zimbabwe (20%). Paul said the survey also identified reasons why international travellers would not want to visit South Africa in 2010. These included “no interest in the World Cup”, “too expensive” and security concerns. Some 45% of respondents said wouldn’t feel safe visiting South Africa, while 42% were unsure if they would feel safe. Concerns about personal safety were most prevalent amongst respondents from Germany, Japan, South Korea and the UK, but the least prevalent in the US, Brazil and Mexico. Reasons given preventing people from travelling to South Africa included the cost, the economic situation, safety concerns and people looking for better travel deals.