Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines

*   South Africa welcomed close to 10 million international tourists in 2013, a 5% increase between 2012 and 2013.  The following paragraph from eTurboNews makes no sense at all, appearing to be copy and pasted directly from a SA Tourism media release: ‘The latest release from Statistics South Africa (StatsSA) indicates that international foreign arrivals to South Africa reached its highest levels ever, namely 14,860,216 in 2013. This 10.5% increase in international foreign arrivals (over 13,451,565 in 2012) translated to 9.6 million international tourist arrivals. All international tourist arrivals combined increased by 4.7%, while the overseas tourist arrivals sub-category increased by 7.1%‘!  Minister of Tourism Marthinus van Schalkwyk said: ‘South Africa’s tourism industry continues to show good growth and we remain confident in the ongoing performance and sustainability of the sector‘.  Visitors from Europe grew by 7%, especially from Germany (14% growth), France (10%), and Italy (10%).  The growth from the UK was a mere 1%, while the USA grew by 7%, and China by 15%, now our 4th largest source market. Tourist growth from Brazil was 6%, while that from Africa was 12%. The growth in Tourism’s contribution to the GDP was 3% in the past year. The Tourism industry accounted for 5% of the country’s employment.  The Minister announced the development of a ‘dashboard‘, enhancing our country’s collection of ‘insights and market intelligence’, which is to be launched in September.