Heritage Day at the Voortrekker Monument. (Photo: Provided)
Tourism in South Africa has suffered over the past few years, but if the Voortrekker Monument (VTM) is any indication, international tourists are visiting South Africa in their thousands.
In January and February last year, the Voortrekker Monument had 352 international visitors. A year later, these numbers increased drastically with 4,400 overseas visitors who came to make their home here.
“The fact that our visitor numbers have more than tripled in one year just goes to show that the VTM really is one of the country’s most loved tourist attractions. It is fantastic to know that at the monument we once again have the opportunity, now more than ever before, to take our story into the world,” says Marianda Schlebusch, the VTM’s manager of cultural tourism.
However, with the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, this picture looked very different and monuments, memorials and museums across the country began to suffer, including the VTM.
According to the 2020 Tourism Report issued by Statistics South Africa, foreign visitor numbers fell by 71% during the pandemic, from just over 15.8 million in 2019 to less than 5 million in 2020.
This report shows that the overall number of travelers decreased by 71.0% between 2019 and 2020. The overall number of travelers decreased by 50.7% over a 15-year period, from almost 24.6 million in 2006, to 12.1 million travelers in 2020.
Schlebusch says the recent increase in foreign visitors creates a great opportunity for the monument to convey the history of the Afrikaner to a larger, international audience.
“We are particularly grateful that our overseas tourists are starting to return to the VTM,” she said.
In August last year, Martin Bosma, the deputy speaker of the Dutch house of representatives, vice-chairman of the Second Chamber and representative of the Partij voor de Vrijheid (PVV), together with management members of the Solidarity Movement, visited the Voortrekker Monument (VTM).
Early this year, 25 Belgian scholars visited the VTM with the Prosa-11 exchange program between Garsfontein High School and Oscar Romero College in Belgium. Shortly after this, Wierd Duk, the senior editor of The Telegraphthe largest newspaper in the Netherlands, visited South Africa with his daughter Zetske and told that the VTM was a real highlight for him during his visit to the country.
It seems that it is not only foreign tourists who are now traveling more frequently to South Africa. According to Bonnie Smith, general manager of the Flight Center Travel Group (FCTG), the rate at which business people travel within and outside South Africa is also recovering to pre-pandemic levels.
“Worldwide, there is an annual increase of 18% in the amount of passengers on board flights. In South Africa, the number of people traveling internationally for business has increased by 26%.”
She says this is a clear sign that businesses are ready to meet their customers face to face again.
