The city of gold has been named Africa’s most visited city for a second consecutive year, according to the MasterCard Global Destination Cities Index.
The MasterCard Global Destination Cities Index ranks 132 cities around the world annually based on levels of travel to these destinations.
The index generates estimates of the total number of international visitors to each of these cities per year, their cross-border spending in these cities and a breakdown of their numbers by feeder cities.
Johannesburg was ranked the third most popular among Middle Eastern and African destination cities by international overnight visitors- led by Dubai and Riyadh with 11.95 million and 5.59 million visitors respectively.
The city of gold ranked ahead of Cape Town in both visitor numbers and traveller spending with 4.25 million visitors and $3.2 billion in overnight visitor spending this year compared to the mother city’s 1.6 million visitors and $2.3 billion in spending.
Johannesburg’s top five feeder cities were London, Frankfurt, Harare, Maputo, and Paris with visitor numbers from London and Frankfurt growing.
Johannesburg expects 4.3 million international overnight visitors by the end of this year, which would be a 4.9 percent increase from last year, and an expected traveller expenditure of $3.2 billion.
