South Africa’s overseas tourist arrivals were down by 10% year-on-year in September despite increases from Central and South America and Australasia.

The latest Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) international tourism report shows arrivals from Europe, North America, the Middle East and Asia were all down from last September. Arrivals from Europe – by far the country’s largest regional contributor to inbound tourism from overseas – were down by 15.7% to 73 140.

Arrivals from the leading source markets of the UK (-19.3%), Germany (-20.7%), the Netherlands (-9.9%), France (-1.3%) and Italy (-21%) were all significantly down from last September. Among the European countries recorded by Stats SA, only Portugal and Russia recorded increases, of 3.7% and 0.9% respectively.

North America was down by 4.4% from last year to 33 007 arrivals and the Middle East – impacted by regional conflict – dropped by 48.4% to 2 695. Asia was down by 1.8% to 16 784 arrivals.

Arrivals from Australasia increased by 2.5% to 10 696, while the robust surge in arrivals from Central and South America continued with a 25.5% increase to 6 208. Intra-African arrivals were down by 0.3% to 523 244.

Overall, tourist arrivals were down by 2.5% to 666 718.

On a positive note, overseas arrivals from the start of this year to the end of September were up 2.9% from last year to just over 1.5 million while total arrivals (including intra-African arrivals) were up 6% to over 6.5 million. South Africa has set a target of attracting 10.7 million visitors by the end of the year.

Click here to view our interactive data on current and historical overseas arrivals in South Africa.