Weekly Travel News Recap, 17 May: SA international arrivals are booming, Maasai Mara flooding, and more

Catch up on all the latest travel news with Drive South Africa.

Each week, our team scours the web for the most interesting, trending, and unusual travel news, conservation news, and motoring news stories. Here are this week’s biggest scoops.

Travel News

• UK overtakes US to become South Africa’s largest overseas travel market. Speaking at Africa’s Travel Indaba in Durban, Tourism Minister Patricia de Lille reported that over 125,000 Brits visited South Africa in Q1 of 2024, representing a 5% increase year-on-year. The US wasn’t far behind, with 118,000 travellers, up 12% year-on-year. De Lille cites the favourable exchange rate for the boom.

• Visa exemptions increase international to South Africa. According to the latest statistics, the government’s decision to apply visa exemptions for travellers from certain African countries has resulted in a 15.4% increase in international travellers in Q1 of 2024. African nationals now make up 74.5% of all international arrivals.

• EU Commission flags Booking.com as a travel gatekeeper. The European Commission is giving Booking.com six months to submit a compliance report after flagging it for potentially monopolising online travel bookings. The commission wants the platform to allow other companies to inter-operate with it.

• Etihad now offering passengers free stopover hotel stays in Abu Dhabi. The Emirati airline has added an option for travellers to add a stopover in Abu Dhabi and select a hotel in the city free of charge for up to two nights, provided they have a layover of more than 24 hours. South African travellers will need to secure a visa beforehand.

• Gulf Cooperation Council signals intent to launch Schengen-like visa by the end of 2024. The GCC says the proposed visa will enable travellers to visit the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, and Qatar for up to 30 days using a single visa. It’s expected to be especially popular among Hajj and Umrah travellers.

• South Africans favoured travel to the UK, Australia, Mauritius, Italy, and the US in 2023. Discovery Bank’s SpendTravel24 found that the number of SA travellers to France increased by 3% last year, largely thanks to the Rugby World Cup. Emerging popular destinations included Lagos, Nigeria, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

• Minister of Tourism says the industry must overcome African air travel restrictions in order to grow. Speaking at Africa’s Travel Indaba in Durban, Minister Patricia de Lille said that African countries must overcome challenges like limited airport infrastructure development, high airline operating costs, and regulatory barriers if they hope to grow their travel industries.

Conservation News

• At least 12 tented camps and lodges destroyed in Maasai Mara flooding. According to The Star, the lodges were ravaged when the Mara and Talek rivers broke their banks in late April. However, international traveller cancellations have been “insignificant” and many tour operators have returned to normal operations while reconstruction efforts get underway.

• Researchers trace South African leopard ancestry to the ice age. Researchers have successfully compiled the mitogenome of leopards from Mpumalanga, finding that South African leopards descended from two unique clades around 800,000 years ago. It’s the first time researchers have properly classified South African leopards and it’s hoped the research will guide conservation efforts.

• Transferring Amboseli National Park to a new county could threaten its biodiversity. According to The Standard, a proposal to move the iconic national park to the County Government of Kajaido represents “a blatant assault on Kenya’s natural heritage and conservation efforts”. It adds that the move “will unleash a cascade of detrimental consequences that will threaten the existence of Amboseli as a globally recognised biodiversity hotspot”.

• Orcas attack and sink another boat in Europe. The same group of orcas that has previously attacked boats in southwest Europe has sunk a huge sailing yacht in the Strait of Gibraltar after tearing a hole in its hull. This marks the fifth sinking in three years, with experts warning that more attacks are likely.

Motoring News

• SA car exports could tank if manufacturers don’t start building electric vehicles by 2030. IOL Motoring says that while South Africa’s vehicle exports have grown by 20% since 2014, the EU and UK plan to ban the sale of new internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles by 2035, potentially jeopardising the local industry. However, government expects the country to manufacture its first EV as early as 2026.

• JAECOO enters to 30 best-selling automotive brands in South Africa after just two weeks in the market. The Chinese manufacturer says it placed 28th out of 54 total automotive brands in April, despite launching its first vehicle two weeks into the month. This helped the Chery Group achieve its highest-ever monthly sales figures of 2,009 units.

Travel News Image Credits: Unsplash

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