Tourism Minister Patricia de Lille said tourism can attract investment and create jobs at scale in South Africa. She spoke at the South African Tourism Investment Summit 2026 on Thursday.
The summit took place at the Sandton Convention Centre in Johannesburg. De Lille said both global and local trends show that tourism is growing in economic value.
“At Beyond Tourism Day, the World Bank’s work identified tourism among the five sectors with significant potential to generate jobs at scale,” De Lille said.
According to Statistics South Africa, tourism directly employed 953 981 people in 2024. That was 5.7% of all jobs in the country. Its direct share of the economy reached 4.9% of GDP.
The minister said travel and tourism support more than 366 million jobs around the world. She said the sector makes up 10% of global GDP.
De Lille gave figures for local and foreign travel in 2025. She said South Africans took 44.7 million overnight trips inside the country and spent R111.6 billion.
She said the country also welcomed a record 10.5 million international arrivals in 2025. Those visitors spent R102.2 billion, according to the minister.
The minister said South Africa is among the top 20 countries in the world for international arrivals. She linked this growth to the Tourism Growth Partnership Plan.
“This growth is not by accident; it is by design through the Tourism Growth Partnership Plan, which government and the private sector have agreed to, with five priorities,” De Lille said.
She said investment in tourism infrastructure is needed so the sector can meet rising demand. The Department of Tourism has set up a Tourism Infrastructure Facilitation Unit for this work.
According to the minister, the unit helps investors remove barriers and moves priority projects towards being built.
“We have now strengthened that capacity further through a three-year Memorandum of Agreement with Infrastructure South Africa and strengthened access to finance through institutions such as the Industrial Development Corporation,” De Lille said.
De Lille pointed to the Club Med Beach and Safari Resort in KwaZulu-Natal as an example. She said the resort, which opened not long ago, is an investment of more than R2 billion.
She also spoke about the Tourism Route Development Marketing Plan, which Cabinet approved. The government said the plan aims to get national government, provinces and the private sector working together on tourism routes.
“We are already seeing airlines demonstrate confidence in the South African market through the increased additional capacity,” she said.
The summit brings together investors, people from the tourism industry and policymakers. According to SAnews, the first summit in 2025 saw eight bankable projects unlock nearly R1 billion in potential investment.
Source: this article is based on reporting by SAnews.gov.za. Image: GCIS via SAnews.gov.za. Written with the help of AI and published by the Tzaneen Voice Business desk. See our Editorial Standards.
Anelisa Nkuna covers business and money news for Tzaneen Voice. Anelisa reports on the rand, fuel prices, interest rates, jobs, Eskom, Transnet, farming and company results. The aim is simple: explain what the numbers mean for household budgets, small businesses and workers in South Africa.