The Western Cape’s biggest attractions welcomed over 25 million visitors in 2012.
Alan Winde, Minister of Finance, Economic Development and Tourism, said there were increases at several of the province’s tourism hotspots in the past year.
These include Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens, the V&A Waterfront, the three Table Mountain National Parks in Cape Town, the Cango Caves, the Wilderness National Park and the West Coast National Park.
In addition, Cape Town International Airport recorded the highest numbers of domestic arrivals in the past five years.
|
|
2011 |
2012 |
Change |
|
Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens |
627, 654 |
637, 727 |
1.6% |
|
V&A Waterfront |
21, 800, 997 |
21, 502, 348 |
-1.4% |
|
Table Mountain National Park |
2,266, 796 |
2,406,531 |
6.2% |
|
Table Mountain National Park: Boulders |
514, 583 |
580, 496 |
12.8% |
|
Table Mountain National Park: Cape of Good Hope |
775, 651 |
829,197 |
6.9% |
|
Cango Caves |
182,956 |
185,590 |
1.4% |
|
Wilderness National Park |
70,722 |
71,019 |
0.4% |
|
West Coast National Park |
209, 386 |
215, 894 |
3.1% |
|
Cape Town International Airport |
3,471,056 |
3,489,755 |
2.4% |
Minister Winde welcomed the 2.4% increase in domestic arrivals at Cape Town International Airport. “This is proof that the province’s campaign to increase domestic tourism is yielding results.”
“Tourism is one of biggest growth sectors and major employers. It is encouraging that visitor numbers at tourism landmarks in different parts of the province have increased. One of our main goals is to spread the benefit of tourism across the Western Cape. These latest numbers show we can reach the goal of growing the contribution to the GDP of this sector from 10% and 15% by 2015,” said Minister Winde.
With the start of the peak tourism season around the corner, Minister Winde encouraged the industry to embrace innovation to keep their products competitive.
Minister Winde added that while leisure continues to be the most popular reason visitors travel to the Western Cape, he was confident the province’s strength in other areas, such as business tourism, was growing.
“We are constantly looking for ways to ensure the destination becomes competitive year round and offer visitors a diverse range of reasons to come to our province. This is why business tourism is a focus area.
“Over the next year it estimated that conferences will bring in R74 million to the local economy. Business tourists have a higher spend than leisure tourists. In addition the province is investigating the establishment of three direct air routes between Angola, Nigeria and Ghana. We have purposefully selected destinations with high business and leisure tourism opportunities.”
The full report was formulated and released by Wesgro, the Western Cape’s official tourism, trade and investment promotion agency.