How much the average tourist spends in South Africa’s biggest cities
The latest Global Destinations Index by MasterCard shows that South Africa is seeing tourists spending less money, despite a bigger number of travellers visiting Cape Town and Joburg in 2016.
The Index, published annually, provides a ranking of the 132 most visited cities around the world, and projects visitor volume and spend estimates for the 2016 calendar year.
According to the index, both Joburg and Cape Town saw a higher number of travellers visiting in 2016 than in 2015, when the country suffered a significant slump.
However, despite the increase in feet through the door, travellers have been spending less – keeping with a declining trend in visitor spend since 2012.
Joburg remains the most popular destination city in the country, having seen 3.6 million travellers stay overnight in the city. Cape Town follows with just under 1.4 million visitors.
In terms of visitor spending, in 2016 Joburg saw $1.7 billion from travellers (R6,525 per person), while Cape Town received $1 billion (R9,912 per person). Over the past 5 years, average spend per visitor has been dropping, though Cape Town remains firmly ahead of Joburg.
The following graphs and tables show the visitor and spending trend in Johannesburg and Cape Town over the past 5 years.
| Johannesburg | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | |
| Overnight visitors (millions) | 3.81 | 3.71 | 3.80 | 3.39 | 3.60 |
| Total spend (ZARbn) | 51.74 | 35.99 | 32.73 | 27.02 | 23.49 |
| Average spend (ZAR) | 13 580 | 9 700 | 8 613 | 7 970 | 6 525 |
| Cape Town | |||||
| 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | |
| Overnight visitors (millions) | 1.51 | 1.33 | 1.39 | 1.29 | 1.37 |
| Total spend (ZARbn) | 23.49 | 18.47 | 18.20 | 15.62 | 13.58 |
| Average spend (ZAR) | 20 426 | 13 887 | 13 093 | 12 108 | 9 912 |
Conversions done at 1 USD = 13.58 ZAR
According to the study, Bangkok is projected to receive 21.47 million international overnight visitors in 2016, just ahead of second-ranked London. Forecasted international overnight visitors to the rest of the top 10 cities include:
- London – 19.88 million visitors
- Paris – 18.03 million visitors
- Dubai – 15.27 million visitors
- New York – 12.75 million visitors
- Singapore – 12.11 million visitors
- Kuala Lumpur – 12.02 million visitors
- Istanbul – 11.95 million visitors
- Tokyo – 11.70 million visitors
- Seoul – 10.20 million visitors
“The biggest surprise in this year’s Index is Dubai’s jump to the top rank based on international visitor spending of US$31.3 billion, far exceeding the second ranked London estimated at US$19.8 billion,” MasterCard said.
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