Travel Niche Blog

Figures released by the Cape Town Routes Unlimited (CTRU) tourism agency suggest that South Africa had the largest growth of international tourism in the world during the 2005-2006 holiday season.

Of the 800 million international travelers world-wide, 7.4 million visited South Africa during 2005. This was an impovement of over 10% compared with 2004, which makes South Africa by far the fastest growing market in the world according to the CTRU. Most of the international visitors were from the UK, Germany and the US spending a total of 0.5 billion dollars during their stay.
People coming to South Africa didn’t just come for safari trips though; many tourists came seeking essential and cosmetic surgey. Such “scalpel safari” visitors are drawn by the avaliabilty of quality medical services at competitive prices. In fact the number of overseas scalpel safari patients has trebled in the last three years according to experts.

Most visitors were drawn to the Western Cape region of South Africa, leading Virgin Airways, BA, and Lufthansa to create additional long haul flights directly into Cape Town airport.

I’m not convinced that all of the international visitors were tourists though, and the CTRU doesn’t appear to give a breakdown of business and pleasure visits. Nonetheless, with such a boom occurring before the start of the FIFA Football World Cup in  2010, it looks like South Africa is a destination to watch.

For more details of tourism attractions and venues in the Western Cape, pop over to the CTRU website.

Columbia has announced a $4 million ad campaign to lure back tourists.

Over the last few years President Alvaro Uribe has taken a hardline approach against Farc rebels and disarmed paramilitary groups. The result has been that kidnappings have fallen by 73%, and Columbia has launched the campaign to rebuild it’s image as a “safe” tourist destination.
I know tourists seem to have memories worse than goldfish, but it’s my feeling that Columbia have a lot of work to do to repair it’s battered image worldwide. Also $4 million dollars is a comparatively modest amount for a global advertising campaign.

In 2004, 10 tourists were captured by Farc rebels despite the deployment of 100,000 security guards in the National parks and tourist hotspots. Farc were kidnapping 100’s of people each year for ransom, and paramilitary groups were thought to be kiling 3,000 people a year.

Today, Columbians themselves feel safer than for decades, and are ready to try and lure back vacationers to see the Amazon rainforest, white sandy beaches and ancient monuments. Many visitors also come to take advantage of so-called “plastic surgery tourism”.

Many tourists are already chancing their luck, with nearly 1 million foreign visitors arriving in Columbia during 2005. In fact Columbia is again one of the top 10 holiday destinations according to the Lonely Planet.

However, there is still a US goverment travel advisory warning against travelling to Columbia at this time. It seems many tourists are ready to chance their luck!