Number of overnight tourists in South Africa from 2012 to 2021

In 2021, the number of tourists in South Africa amounted to 2.3 million. This was a drop compared to 2020, when the number of overnight arrivals in the country amounted to 2.8 million. Between 2012 and 2019, the number of tourist arrivals in the country increased yearly, except for slight drops in 2015 and 2019. However, international overnight arrivals dropped noticeably in 2020 and 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic.

 South Africa tourist arrivals

South Africa came second in a ranking of the leading African countries in terms of international tourist arrivals in 2021. It only had around 220,000 fewer international arrivals than the most visited country, Tunisia. The tourism industry is one of the key industries in South Africa attracting visitors from all over the world. In 2021, the largest number of visitors to South Africa from a non-African country came from the United States of America (USA) with 82,020 visitors.

 Lower contribution of the tourism sector to the economy

The contribution of the travel and tourism sector reached 3.2 percent of the South African GDP in 2021. This was a drop compared to 2019 pre-pandemic (COVID-19) levels from 6.4 percent of the GDP. As a result, the contribution of travel and tourism to employment in the sector dropped. In 2021, the industry provided almost 1.1 million jobs, this was over 1.5 million jobs in 2019.