As South Africa enters its traditional low season, inbound arrivals from overseas for April remained almost identical to the same month last year, with the country recording an increase of just 61 visitors.

According to the April 2024 International Tourism Report published by Statistics SA (Stats SA), arrivals from overseas totalled 160 708, a 0.03% increase from the 160 647 figure captured in April 2023.

Three of the country’s top 10 source markets (the UK, Germany, and Belgium) did not outperform April 2023’s arrivals, while arrivals from North America, Central and South America and Asia, all saw reasonable growth.

But when compared to April 2019, overseas visitor numbers were still at just 74% of pre-COVID figures, with the UK at 62.8%, Germany at 54.7%, Belgium at 54.5% and Italy at 66%, all down this year.  

Encouragingly, the US market was at 100.3% of April 2019 levels, while the Netherlands was the only other source market in the top 10 that exceeded pre-COVID arrivals, at 102%.

Statistics from April 2019, 2023, and 2024 are as follows:

Click here to view Tourism Update’s interactive map of the latest inbound statistics.