South Africa has the potential to boost its annual foreign tourist intake to 10.5 million from the current 6.5 million in the next five years as global economy continues to grow, said the country's tourism marketing chief.

The International Monetary Fund has projected a 4.3 percent of global economic growth in the next year, which means more people are going to have more money to spend on travel, said Moeketsi Mosola, chief executive officer of the South African Tourism.

Quoted by Friday's newspaper Business Day, Mosola said tourism trends worldwide were returning to normal following three difficult years that saw tourism destinations hit by major events, such as the September 11 terror attacks in the United States in 2001, the US-led war in Iraq and the effects of the severe acute respiratory syndrome epidemic in Asia.

Despite this potential for growth, Mosola said South Africa still had to ensure that it integrated its tourism offerings to the world and make sure it remained competitive on a global scale.

Growth in world tourism for the first nine months last year had been 12 percent, while South Africa as an international destination grew only 1.9 percent, the World Tourism Organization (WTO) figures show.

Compared with other regions, tourism to Asia at a world level grew 37 percent, but incoming tourism to South Africa from Asia grew only 6 percent, Mosola said.

Mosola also played down talk of opportunities arising from the tsunami catastrophe that hit 12 southeast Asian and east African countries that represent 4 percent of global tourism stock of about 31 million people.

He said early indications from the WTO showed that between 70 percent and 80 percent of operations affected were already up and running and that tourists were returning. In Maldives, of the 87 resorts affected, 64 were fully operational.

"The tourism stock directly affected in the six countries most badly affected by the tsunami is only estimated to be 1 percent of the total global stock, which is small, it is not as big as people are saying it is," said Mosola.

A study showed last October that tourism industry is replacing traditional gold exports as South Africa's new economic engine, contributing about 7 percent to the country's gross domestic product.

(Xinhua News Agency January 24, 2005)