{"id":8156,"date":"2014-11-07T13:45:44","date_gmt":"2014-11-07T13:45:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jda.dev.griam.co.za\/?p=8156"},"modified":"2018-08-24T13:48:07","modified_gmt":"2018-08-24T13:48:07","slug":"joburg-is-africas-most-visited-city-mastercard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jda.org.za\/archived\/joburg-is-africas-most-visited-city-mastercard\/","title":{"rendered":"Joburg is Africa&#8217;s most visited city: MasterCard"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"blurb\"><strong>Joburg is expected to receive 4.3-million international visitors spending in the region of US$3.2-billion (about R35.6-billion) in 2014.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Johannesburg is ranked as Africa&#8217;s most visited city in the 2014 MasterCard Global Destination Cities Index &#8211; the second time running the City has topped the tourist popularity rankings for the continent.<\/p>\n<p>Released on Thursday, MasterCard index ranks 132 cities by number of international visitor arrivals and visitor spending.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The city of gold&#8217;s status as the most popular destination city among visitors to the African continent is significant for the economic prospects of the city,&#8221; MasterCard South Africa president Mark Elliott said in a statement, adding: &#8220;Visitor spend is an increasingly important source of revenue for the city&#8217;s hospitality, retail, transport, sports and cultural sectors.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Joburg Executive Mayor Parks Tau said the ranking cemented the City&#8217;s position as the economic capital and heartland of trade and economic activity in Africa.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We also believe that visitors continue to flock to Johannesburg because it is a truly cosmopolitan and vibrant destination where various cultures live and celebrate side by side,&#8221; Tau said.<\/p>\n<p>According to the index, Johannesburg is set to receive 4.3-million international overnight visitors in 2014, up from 4.1-million in 2013, and to enjoy an international visitor spend of US$3.2-billion (about R35.6-billion).<\/p>\n<p>This is substantially ahead of Africa&#8217;s second-placed city, Cape Town, which is expected to receive 1.6-million visitors spending $2.3-billion (about R26-billion) in 2014.<\/p>\n<p>Johannesburg&#8217;s top five &#8220;feeder cities&#8221; for international visitors are London, Frankfurt, Harare, Maputo and Paris &#8211; with figures from London expected to increase from 444 000 in 2013 to 458 000 in 2014.<\/p>\n<p>Twelve other African countries are ranked on the index, namely: Cape Town, Durban, Cairo, Casablanca, Accra, Nairobi, Beira, Dakar, Kampala, Lagos, Maputo and Tunis.<\/p>\n<p>London remains the number one City for global travel, according to MasterCard, with a forecast 18.7-million international visitors in 2014, followed by Bangkok (16.4-million), Paris (15.5-million), Singapore (12.4-million) and Dubai (11.9-million).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Joburg is expected to receive 4.3-million international visitors spending in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media-releases-2014"],"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jda.org.za\/archived\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jda.org.za\/archived\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jda.org.za\/archived\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jda.org.za\/archived\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jda.org.za\/archived\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jda.org.za\/archived\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8156\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jda.org.za\/archived\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jda.org.za\/archived\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jda.org.za\/archived\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}