While the South African economy continues to struggle, there is another data point suggesting a marginal improvement in the underlying economy: Tourism statistics.

We touched on an improvement in the South African manufacturing sector in 2018 and the tourism statistics released by StatsSA suggest December 2018 was an improvement over the corresponding period in 2017.

What is interesting in the latest statistics, is that the was a pleasing spike in visitors from the rest of Africa coming through SA in December.

Here are the statistics:

Tourists increased by 1,6%, from 991 579 in December 2017 to 1 007 155 in December 2018,

They were constituted as follows:

• Overseas tourists (259 403), who decreased by 0,9% from 261 728 in December 2017. Despite the overall decrease, tourism for specific countries increased.
  • The highest increase, 5,2% was for tourists from Sweden (from 8 527 in December 2017 to 8 967 in December 2018), followed by those from Germany , who increased by 2,4% (from 32 560 in December 2017 to 33 328 in December 2018).
• Tourists from SADC (730 401), who increased by 2,2% from 714 389 in December 2017.
  • The highest increase, 17,0% was for tourists from DRC (from 4 117 in December 2017 to 4 815 in December 2018), followed by those from Zimbabwe, who increased by 8,4% (from 209 479 in December 2017 to 227 162 in December 2018).
• Tourists from ‘other’ African countries (16 102), who increased by 11,3% from 14 461 in December 2017.
  • The highest increase, 327,7% was for tourists from Somalia (from 47 in December 2017 to 201 in December 2018) , followed by those from Kenya, who increased by 30,5% (from 2 642 in December 2017 to 3 449 in December 2018).