Travel and Tourism, Travel Agencies, Tour Operators and Related Services Industry in South Africa 2022

South Africa's struggling tourism industry is slowly recovering from the pandemic, where border closures, flight cancellations, and onerous entry requirements cut nearly 500,000 jobs from the country’s tourism sector. The sector has an extensive value chain and labour creation capacity, and is a vital contributor to the South African economy and a significant foreign exchange earner. Demand is volatile and seasonal and supply is fragmented, inflexible and dominated by fixed investment costs.

Recovery

Many travel agents and tour operators’ operations diminished to almost nothing, flights came to a standstill and hotels and restaurants lay empty during the pandemic. A growing number of companies and organisations have been forced to permanently close their doors. Revenue loss and ongoing operational costs have resulted in substantial cash flow problems for many companies. Some experts are expecting the situation to normalise by 2024. But travellers are returning, and 9.3 million travellers (total arrivals and departures of both international and South Africans) passed through South African ports of entry and exit in 2021 and 8.8 million travellers have passed through in the first half of 2022, more than double the first half of 2021.

Influencing Factors

As the industry recovers from the pandemic, the Russia-Ukraine war has exacerbated already high oil prices and transportation costs, increased uncertainty and caused some travel disruptions. The war has led to huge fuel price increases in 2022 and there could be further increases, which may have a substantial impact on the travel and tourism industry.

Report Coverage

This report on travel and tourism, travel agencies, tour operators and related services industry in South Africa focuses on the state of tourism and travel and its effect on the industry including travel and tourism statistics, the major players, corporate actions and developments, key trends and influencing factors.

There are profiles of 61 companies including major players such as Tourvest, Flight Centre and Rennies, tour operators such as African Eagle Cape Town Day Tours and Egoli Tours and booking companies such as Booking South Africa.