October 29, 2003

By Audrey d'Angelo

Cape Town - The strong rand would not deter European tourists from coming to South Africa, and their numbers would be limited only by the availability of airline seats, Anton Thompson, the managing director of Thompson's Tours, said yesterday.

He said his company - one of this country's leading tour companies - was bringing in 20 percent more tourists than last year, "and I am sure everybody else involved in incoming tourism is in the same boat.

"But there is a major constraint on getting enough seats on planes for everyone who wants to come here, in spite of the fact that more flights have already started and others will be coming."

He and other players in the tourism industry pointed out that South Africa still offered good value to tourists from Europe, and the UK in particular, despite the stronger rand. But they would not be able to spend as lavishly as last year, when the weak rand meant giveaway prices to visitors with stronger currencies.

One industry source pointed out that Tourvest, which has issued a warning that profits would be lower, owned shops selling curios and other mementos to tourists and these were unlikely to do as well as they did last year.

"Tourists usually spend most of their money on food, drink and transport and there has been a fall-off in sales at airport shops."

David Walker, the managing director of Rennies Bank, said that incoming visitors were changing the same amounts of foreign currency as last year, which meant they would not be able to spend as much.

"And two things happened last year - the World Cup cricket and the summit [on sustainable development] that brought a lot of money in. We don't have those events this year, and this quarter is not normally a good one for tourism. The next quarter should be quite a bit better."  

Walker pointed out that inflation was low and visitors from the UK, in particular, would still find prices far less than they were used to paying at home.

Unfortunately, some shops and hotels had taken the opportunity to inflate their prices.

"I think by Easter we will find we have done reasonably well this season. We have been experiencing steady growth in tourism for years."

Ari Jacobson, the managing director of foreign exchange company Master Currency, said it was too early to say what the holiday season would be like but signs were that it would be good.

The average foreign tourist was "changing 25 percent more currency than this time last year but putting less in his pocket to spend".

He said it was possible that Tourvest had made some decisions that would affect its profits.

Liz Sheridan, a spokesperson for SA Tourism, said African visitors had been identified as big spenders in this country, with many coming here regularly to shop.

Last year people arriving from other African countries by air had spent R4.04 billion in South Africa, and those coming by road or train had spent R18.8 billion. This compared with R6.3 billion spent by visitors from the UK and R3 billion from the US.

Charles Forsyth, the general manager of British Airways in southern Africa, said that from yesterday his airline had put on three additional flights a week to Cape Town but would still be unable to meet demand.

KLM Royal Dutch Airlines said its five non-stop flights a week to Cape Town, introduced on Sunday, were 90 percent fully booked. Only 30 percent of passengers were Dutch; the rest came from other European countries.