International tourist arrivals at Cape Town airport back to pre-pandemic levels

There are early signs international tourism in the Western Cape is making a full recovery.

This week, the Western Cape tourism, trade and investment promotion agency Wesgro announced that statistics for April show the proportion of foreign tourists at Cape Town International Airport “has achieved a full recovery compared to pre-pandemic levels in April 2019”.

According to the agency, the airport recorded 67,747 tourist arrivals in April, of which 87% were from overseas markets and 13% from the African continent.

Western Cape finance and economic opportunities MEC Mireille Wenger welcomed the development.

“I am very pleased that we have reached pre-pandemic levels of tourists to the Western Cape,” she said.

“Our focus now is to move beyond recovery and to focus all efforts on growing the tourism and hospitality sector, because more tourists mean more jobs in the Western Cape.”

On Friday Wenger welcomed “the first direct flight” from Eswatini to Cape Town.

“This new direct route is one of two routes recently secured, the other being from Lusaka, Zambia, to Cape Town.”

TimesLIVE