According to information collected from the department of home affairs immigration offices nearly 3.4 million travellers, including those arriving in the country, departing or in transit to other places passed through South African ports in June, the national statistics agency revealed on Monday.
In its latest monthly tourism and immigration report, Statistics South Africa said foreign arrivals increased by 0.3 percent year-on-year to more than 1.16 million in June, but were down 4.1 percent from May.
It said the majority of tourists in June – 712,168 or 97 percent, were in South Africa for holiday, compared to 2.5 percent who came for business, 0.5 percent for study and 0.1 percent who were in the country for medical treatment.
The majority of African tourists, 564,488 or 97.5 percent, came to South Africa for holiday.
Of these, 553,296 or 97.8 percent of visitors from Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries were on holiday, compared with 84.6 percent or 11,192 tourists from other African countries who came for the same purpose.
Business persons constituted 11.4 percent of tourists from the rest of Africa and 1.8 percent from SADC countries, while students constituted 3.6 percent of arrivals from the rest of the continent and 0.3 percent from South Africa’s SADC neighbours in June.
During the month, medical treatment tourists accounted for 0.4 percent of visitors to South Africa from the rest of the continent, while 0.1 percent constituted those from SADC countries.
– ANA, editing by Stella Mapenzauswa
