Johannesburg is the most popular city in Africa for international travellers!

According to the Mastercard Global Destination Cities Index 2017, Johannesburg in South Africa is the most popular city in Africa for international travellers. The city is projected to welcome 4.88 million (+6.8%) international overnight visitors in 2017 and had 4,57 million international overnight visitors in 2016. Cape Town is the continents second most popular destination with an estimated 1.62 million (+6.8%) international overnight visitors in 2017 and 1.52 million visitors from outside the country in 2016.
In terms of international overnight visitors spending, Johannesburg also takes the lead in Africa. MasterCard expects visitors to the City of Gold to spend US$2.89 bn in 2017 (US$2.56 bn in 2016). Cape Town comes in second with a spending forecast of US$1.43bn by international overnight visitors in 2017 (US$1.26 bn in 2016).

The Mastercard Index of Global Destination Cities ranks cities in terms of the number of their total international overnight visitor arrivals and the cross-border spending by these same visitors in the destination cities in 2016, and gives visitor and passenger growth forecasts for 2017. Public data, and not Mastercard volumes or transactional data, is used in deriving the international overnight visitor arrivals and their cross-border spending in each of the 132 destination cities.