Pretoria - There was a significant drop in the number of people traveling within South Africa between December 2008 and February 2009, Statistics South Africa said on Tuesday. It blamed the effects of the economic downturn experienced across the globe from 2008.
An estimated 8.7 million day trips and 12.3 million overnight trips were taken across the country during the three month period, according to data released by Stats SA.
The data shows that 41 percent of households did not take day trips and 47.3 percent overnight trips due to financial constraints. Some households cited that they were too busy at work to take day or overnight trips.
Gauteng was the most visited province on day trips recording a 24.2 percent of visitors while KwaZulu-Natal had the highest portion of overnight trips at 22.7 percent.
Information was collected from households about details related to the most recent overnight trips such as length of stay and type of accommodation used at the destination.
Visiting friends and family relatives was the main reason by both domestic day and overnight trips during the three-month survey.
The second biggest reason for the trips was to spend time away from the normal environment such as home. The preferred destination on overnight trips for leisure or holiday purposes was the Western Cape, with 60 percent trips.
The data shows that the two most frequently used modes of transport for domestic tourism during this period were taxis and cars as compared to flights. Of the 15 130 million day and overnight trips, cars were used as preferred mode of transport in 6 566 million trips and taxis in 6 032 million trips.
The Stats SA data shows that most overnight trips lasted between two and three nights, in 53.1 percent trips taken to North West, the trips lasted between one and three nights. When the province of destination was the Free State, 46.8 percent of the trips also lasted between one and three nights followed by Gauteng at 42.2 percent, Northern Cape 40 percent, Limpopo 39 percent and Mpumalanga at 38 percent.
Surprisingly, eating out at restaurants and cafes was a very popular activity on both day and overnight trips. An estimated 1 467 million people ate at restaurants and cafes on day trips while 2 648 million ate at restaurants on their overnight trips.
