We may have an even wider choice of overseas and regional flights soon if our minister of tourism, Marthinus van Schalkwyk, has his way.
His report on tourism statistics for last year shows that, helped by the World Cup, our tourism numbers grew at more than twice the rate achieved by the rest of the world, with Europe and North America still struggling out of recession.
Our tourist arrivals showed a record increase of 15.1 percent compared with 6.7 percent for the rest of the world as a whole, according to figures from the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNCTWO). It was not all to do with the World Cup, although it probably resulted from the increased publicity being given to South Africa and the favourable exchange rate for tourists from countries with strong currencies for most of the year.
More than 309 000 tourists came here specifically for the World Cup out of a total of more than eight million for the year. Van Schalkwyk hopes this will attract more airlines to fly here and is urging the government, which relaxed its protectionism of SAA in 2006, to adopt an even more liberal approach. He said the 50 airlines that arrived in this country after 2006 are not enough and he also hopes the airlines already flying here will put on more flights. He made it clear that he looks forward to our low-cost airlines flying to more destinations in Africa, which he said would lead to “an explosion in tourism”, as well as SAA increasing its African route network.
More competition would not necessarily be disastrous for SAA, particularly as it has new-generation aircraft on order. Apart from customer loyalty, it has one of the best safety records of any international airline and its lie-flat beds in business class are among the most comfortable.
Unfortunately this welcome scenario could be scuppered – or at any rate hampered – by the tremendous rise in oil prices, which reached $200 a barrel this week, meaning that airlines will pay far more for their fuel and either charge higher fares or levies or cut the number of flights, and by the high arrival or departure taxes which an increasing number of governments are imposing to help them balance their budgets.
Let’s hope the situation in the Middle East, and particularly Libya, calms down fast and that more governments give up the idea of imposing high taxes on airline passengers in favour of boosting their tourism industries.
One of the encouraging statistics Van Schalkwyk announced was that visitors from China rose by 62.3 percent last year. SAA was persuaded to drop plans for a direct flight to the Chinese mainland when it joined the Star Alliance of international airlines and so far most South Africans go there either by way of Hong Kong, Singapore or with a European airline.
Now the government has persuaded it to start a service between Johannesburg and Beijing and, Van Schalkwyk said on Tuesday, a date for the start of the new service was imminent. He said his department had suggested that SAA should consider a service to Shanghai and, it can be hoped, this will result in flights being offered on that route too.
Less welcome news is that Berlin Air is withdrawing its flights between Cape Town and Duesseldorf, its only route to South Africa, despite that it has high passenger loads. It had already changed its service to a seasonal one, withdrawing in winter and cutting the flights to one a week. A spokesman told me the reason for pulling out was that it was “uneconomic” in spite of the high demand, to put on one flight a week to South Africa when there are other more profitable routes.
Berlin Air is preparing to join the Oneworld international airline alliance in which British Airlines (BA), which flies to Cape Town twice a day in summer and once a day in winter, is a leading member; Duesseldorf is a very short flight from BA’s main airport at London-Heathrow.
Other unwelcome news is that several airlines, including SAA, had raised their fuel levies as a result of rising oil prices even before the trouble in Libya made the situation even worse. None of our low-cost airlines charges fuel levies but they were all preparing to raise their fares to cover the higher cost.
Audrey.D’[email protected] - Weekend Argus