Bumper year-end for domestic tourism

Hospitality and entertainment establishments will be laughing all the way to the bank thanks to South Africans taking a "Sho't Left".

Tourism and hospitality authorities have predicted a "bumper year end for domestic tourism", ahead of updated festive season statistics, expected to be released next month.

"While we do not yet have confirmed numbers for domestic travel in the 2016 festive season, we are encouraged by the trend we have seen so far for 2016," said Sisa Ntshona, head of SA Tourism.

He said the latest statistics indicated that 12.7million domestic trips were taken in the first half of last year.

Sho't Left is a campaign aimed at encouraging locals to be tourists in their own country.

"These domestic travellers spent R15.3-billion compared with 2015's spend of R9.1-billion in the same period. So South Africans are definitely travelling their own country."

Sun City, the Kruger National Park and the traditional holiday cities of Durban and Cape Town topped the list of favourite destinations.

"KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape are popular provinces visited by a lot of South African holidaymakers in the festive season. But we encourage South Africans to travel throughout our beautiful country."

Ntshona said the #StayinSA [social media] campaign - to encourage local travel - was "well received".

Tshifhiwa Tshivhengwa, head of the Federated Hospitality Association of SA, said: "In all of the major holiday cities like Durban, Cape Town, Port Elizabeth and East London, the numbers are looking good in terms of occupancy rates."

For the second quarter of 2016, Fedhasa said there was a 26% increase in leisure tourism.

Tshivhengwa said the different campaigns encouraging South Africans to travel locally and government's R110-million pledge towards the domestic tourism market have had a positive effect.

"The prime locations remain Sun City, Kruger National Park, Durban and Cape Town."