South Africa expects more international visitors for FIFA 2010

South Africa still expects between 430 000 and 460 000 international visitors to come to the country for the FIFA World Cup™ next year.This despite an economic recession which has seen a decline in tourism numbers of 6 per cent worldwide this year, according to South African Minister of Tourism and Environmental Affairs Marthinus van Schalkwyk."It is our view, and also the view of the tour operators we have spoken to, that the economic recession will not have an impact on visitors to the 2010 FIFA World Cup," said Van Schalkwyk at a briefing at the 2010 FIFA World Cup Organising Committee South Africa's head office, SAFA House, earlier today.

"We predict that South Africa will also experience a slowdown but as a country we expect to do better than the global average and outperform our competitors."Five years ago South Africa predicted that visitors to the country would grow to 10 million by 2010. Despite a change in economic climate since that target was made, the country still expects to reach it next year thanks to a focused international marketing campaign and increased air traffic into the country."In the last couple of years we have seen a substantial increase in tourist numbers coming to South Africa. A total of 9.5 million tourists visited South Africa last year and there is no question that by next year we will reach the 10 million mark," said Van Schalkwyk.

The country is also confident that it has the accommodation facilities for the nearly half a million expected visitors to the country, as well as domestic tourists, during the tournament. "FIFA requires 55,000 graded rooms a night for the FIFA family during the tournament. South Africa has over 100,000 graded rooms in the country and hundreds of thousands of ungraded rooms," explained Van Schalkwyk.However, many of these rooms are outside of the nine host cities where the tournament will take place. Therefore satellite accommodation areas will be created and fans transported in and out of these areas on match days, with added land and air transport facilities made available. This is not unusual - many fans at the FIFA World Cup in Germany came in from neighbouring European countries on match days.

"As we have always said, this is an African World Cup and accommodation in neighbouring countries, such as Swaziland and Botswana, will also be used. We are also putting up luxury tented camps in game reserves around the country," said Van Schalkwyk.Also in attendance at the briefing, Sports and Recreation Minister Makhenkesi Stofile, reflected on a successful FIFA Confederations Cup saying that South Africa should capitalise on the good spirit it had created."South Africa must embrace this wave of positive sentiment and use it to our advantage. There were many doubters before the FIFA Confederations Cup but even those who have since admitted they were skeptical have given us very positive feedback," said Stofile.

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