MORE than one million tourists visited Durban over the festive season, 138 486 more than in 2017. The success of the city’s Summer Love campaign was revealed at a meeting of the Executive Committee on Tuesday by Sbu Zondi, senior manager at Durban Tourism.
Zondi said the influx of visitors resulted in the creation of more than 9100 jobs, 1100 jobs more than those created in 2017. The 16 per cent increase in visitors brought with it a massive R2.7billion in direct spend resulting in a R4.5 billion Gross Domestic Product contribution.
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Most of the domestic visitors, some 47 per cent hailed from Gauteng, 18 per cent for the Western Cape and 9 per cent from the Eastern Cape. Swaziland provided the highest number of foreign visitors followwed by other SADC countries. Zondi said the city enjoyed an 81 per cent room occupance which was six per cent more than 2017 and there was also an increase in overnight visitors to the city, with 797 722 recorded over the festive season, 90 000 more than the previous year. Overnight visitors spent some R2.5 billion in direct spend which R400 billion more than the R2.1 billion spent in 2017.
“The direct spend of day visitors was R2.7 billion in 2018, an increase of R500 million compared to the previous year,” he said. The events hosted in the City over the festive season contibuted to luring visitors to the city. Some of these included the Telkom Semi-Final Knockout, the Fill Up Moses Mabhida Stadium and the ANC January 8 Statement which had over 100 000 spectators and approximately 30 000 visitors.
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