Has Sa Reverted To A Two-centre Destination?

Once a country that proudly offered a wide array of Smartie box tourism offerings, industry experts now fear South Africa has reverted to a two-centre destination post-pandemic with Cape Town and Kruger National Park capturing the lions share of tourism. Without concerted, industry-wide efforts to address this, the sectors growth will be constrained.

Speaking during a SATSA webinar on the urgent need for geographical spread in tourism, CEO David Frost said the sector has not recovered as well as many believe because the true performance is masked by excitement about Cape Town and Kruger. He said narrow focus on these attractions imposes an artificial ceiling on the sectors ability to grow and create jobs.

Webinar panellists cited data from their respective businesses. Illana Clayton , CEO of Travel Smart Crew, said: It feels like weve reverted to a two-centre destination.

Travel Smart Crew data for 2023 shows 47.1 of visitor spend went to the greater Kruger area and 29.3 to the Western Cape, excluding the Garden Route. Outside Kruger, Mpumalanga received only 0.8. The Garden Route accounted for just 4 of spend.

Data from other destination management companies DMCs shows similar trends.