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Shoppers’ paradise

It is no secret that a large number of the African tourists whose spending benefits our economy are in fact crossing our borders to do their monthly shopping, or to stock up on goods to sell.

So the expansion of some of our supermarket groups and other local retail and wholesale firms into neighbouring countries, although benefiting our economy by selling locally made products and repatriating profits, has had a noticeable effect on our tourism industry.

Moeketsi Mosola, the chief executive of South African Tourism, explained this when he told a media briefing that although visitors who arrived by road or rail last year from other parts of Africa contributed R36 billion to our economy, this was a fall of R7.9 billion from the previous year.

This is because they could now buy more basic goods in their own countries.

He expects this trend to continue.

However, his forecast was not a gloomy one. Explaining that more visitors from Africa had travelled here, even though they spent less, he said that SA Tourism was now targeting the leisure market in our own continent, as it does in the rest of the world.

All airline markets in Africa performed well, with most of them achieving double-digit growth in passengers, which augurs well for SAA’s expansion plans in this continent and those of our other airlines, if they succeed in gaining more air traffic rights.

The number of foreign visitors from other parts of the world also grew, with interest aroused by preparations for the soccer World Cup in 2010.

Mosola expects their numbers to continue to grow but at a slower rate, and their spending is expected to be lower despite the weak rand because of the economic slowdown in developing countries.