Number of overnight tourists in South Africa from 2012 to 2021

In 2021, the number of tourists in South Africa amounted to 2.3 million. This was a drop compared to 2020, when the number of overnight arrivals in the country amounted to 2.8 million. Between 2012 and 2019, the number of tourist arrivals in the country increased yearly, except for slight drops in 2015 and 2019. However, international overnight arrivals dropped noticeably in 2020 and 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic.  South Africa tourist arrivals South Africa came second in a ranking of the leading African countries in terms of international tourist arrivals in 2021. It only had around 220,000 fewer international arrivals than the most visited country, Tunisia. The tourism industry is one of the key industries in South Africa attracting visitors from all over the world. In 2021, the largest number of visitors to South Africa from a non-African country came from the United States of America (USA) with 82,020 visitors. Lower contribution of the tourism sector to the economyThe contribution of the travel and tourism sector reached 3.2 percent of the South African GDP in 2021. This was a drop compared to 2019 pre-pandemic (COVID-19) levels from 6.4 percent of the GDP. As a result, the contribution of travel and tourism to employment in the sector dropped. In 2021, the industry provided almost 1.1 million jobs, this was over 1.5 million jobs in 2019.

于2021年，南非的游客数量达到230万。相较于2020年该国的过夜到访者数量达到280万，这一数字有所下降。在2012年至2019年期间，南非的游客到访量逐年上升，尽管2015年和2019年略有下降。然而，由于新冠疫情的爆发，2020年和2021年的国际过夜到访量显著减少。在2021年，南非在国际游客到访量排名中位列非洲领先国家第二位，仅次于游客数量最多的突尼斯，两国相差约22万国际游客。旅游业是南非吸引全球游客的关键产业之一。2021年，来自非非洲国家的游客中，美国游客数量最多，达到82,020人次。旅游部门对经济的贡献有所降低，2021年，旅游和旅游业对南非国内生产总值（GDP）的贡献率为3.2%，较疫情前的2019年（GDP贡献率6.4%）有所下降。因此，旅游和旅游业对就业的贡献也有所减少。2021年，该行业提供了近110万个工作岗位，较2019年的150万个工作岗位有所减少。