The City of Cape Town says its trade and travel-related industries have seen a 58 percent growth between October and December last year.

Mayoral Committee Member for Economic Growth, James Vos, says over 700 000 travellers visited Cape Town in that period.

He says 20 000 passengers on average passed through Cape Town International Airport per day in the last two weeks of December. He says this is a clear sign that the travel industry is heading for a recovery this year.

“I’m very happy to confirm that flights to and from Cape Town continue to increase. These are positive signs that Cape Town is open for business. I say this because the visitor economy is everyone’s business. It supports thousands of jobs and linked industries. We will continue to make airlift and connectivity a priority for economic readiness to get more passengers arriving to spend money in our destination.”

Discounts for tourists

At the beginning of December, Cape Town Tourism announced deals and discounts in the tourism industry in an effort to counter the effects of the recent international travel ban on the country and the fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis said there’s an urgent need to adapt. He said the aim was to ensure the survival of the tourism sector.

“Absolutely tens of thousands of cancellations, hundreds of millions of rand if not billions, an estimate produced by our provincial government is that just in December, Cape Town will have lost about R250 million from cancelled bookings, so it has a huge impact on the local tourism economy. That is why we had to innovate so quickly to see what we can to help businesses through these difficulties,” said Hill-Lewis.