South Africa scores goal for economy, tourism

The 2010 FIFA World Cup has been a major boost to both South Africa's economy and tourism industry, and officials hope the benefits will continue long after the competition's final whistle.

FIFA has released figures from the South African Department of Home Affairs which show that hundreds-of-thousands of visitors have poured into the country for the competition.

The period between June 1 to June 21 saw 682,317 foreign visitors entering the country, compared to the 541,065 who arrived during the same period last year.

"From a tourism perspective the World Cup has been fantastic exposure for South Africa," said Thandiwe January-Mclean, CEO of SA Tourism.

Traditional South African tourism markets, such as the UK, USA, Germany, Australia, France and Netherlands, have been among the majority of international visitors.

The competition has also attracted new visitors, namely from Latin American countries such as Mexico and Brazil.

Roshene Singh, chief marketing officer of SA Tourism, is confident there will be new market opportunities after the tournament.

International FIFA Fan Fests that promote South Africa as a destination have attracted more than 900,000 people since the start of the World Cup, something which SA Tourism hopes to capitalise on.

"We are not relaxing, we are continuing with our campaigns to convert awareness into visitors," Singh said.

With the current influx of international World Cup visitors, the economic benefits of the Cup are expected to be massive.

"We only have estimates at this point, but we are looking at around R27 billion (US$3.5 billion), almost a thousand percent of what we spent on marketing," said Singh.

Figures released last week by Visa Inc. indicate that there has already been a substantial boost to the South African economy. For the first 20 days of June, spending by international visitors in South Africa using Visa-branded payment cards has exceeded US$128 million, a year-on-year increase of 54 percent.

The number of transactions made during the same period was up 60 percent on the previous year, coming to a total of 900,000 - 45,000 a day on average.

"The spending is spread right across the 120,000 merchants that accept Visa in South Africa," said Michael Lynch, Visa Inc.'s Global Head of Sponsorship Management.

Cardholders from the UK, followed by the US, Australia, France and Brazil, have been the biggest spenders, accounting for 51 percent of all expenditure recorded by Visa so far.

For January-Mclean, the positive response from foreign visitors has allowed South Africa to do away with stereotypes.