Flight Centre released its annual “Year in Travel” report, providing captivating insights into how and where South Africans travelled over the past year.
The report reveals Mauritius and Dubai have reclaimed their spots as top dream destinations, while also highlighting emerging hot spots like Zanzibar and Cape Town.
It looked at who its typical customer was and trends in group travel, including the top destinations that South African’s travelled to this year both locally and internationally.
Flight Centre South Africa GM, Antoinette Turner, said now that global travel demand was returning to seasonal patterns, they were seeing things like a sharp rise in solo female travellers, Mauritius and Dubai returning strongly as favourite holiday destinations and 4-star accommodation reigning supreme.
According to the travel agency, the top five interesting findings from their travellers’ bookings in 2023 showed that Mauritius was their most popular international destination, and Johannesburg was the most popular local destination.
The travel company also found that the average age of their cruise customer was 51.5 years old and the largest domestic booking was for a group of 33 people travelling to George.
The agency had booked flights for 262 infants and their parents/guardians with their travellers’ longest stay locally being 21 days.
Putting all those segments together, the top 10 international destinations South Africans travelled to in 2023 were:
Mauritius
Dubai
Thailand
Zanzibar
USA
Bali
UK
France
Italy
Maldives
The travel company also found that 86% of their air bookings in 2023 were for international travel. The top 10 international flight destinations travelled to were:
London
Mauritius
Dubai
Phuket
Bali
Auckland
Amsterdam
Paris
Istanbul
Harare
Flight Centre further revealed that 14% of its customers booked domestic air travel in 2023, and the top 5 flight destinations around South Africa being:
Johannesburg
Cape Town
Durban
Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth)
George