Johannesburg- The number of visitors to Cape Town is expected to
dip this southern summer season as the international financial crisis
grounds many Western travellers, South Africa's Business Day reported
Wednesday.

South Africa's "Mother City", with its spectacular Table Mountain
backdrop, sandy beaches and nearby vineyards, is the country's top
tourist destination.

The city is particularly popular with moneyed Europeans. In 2007,
1.7 million people visited Western Cape province, where Cape Town is
located, according to the provincial tourist authority, Cape Town
Routes Ltd.

"There is definite evidence of a slowdown in the inbound leisure
business," the sales director of Southern Sun Hotels group told
Business Day.

The manager of another hotel in the city's ritzy Camps Bay
beachfront neighbourhood also said business was down on last year and
said the first quarter of 2008 - peak tourist season - would be "a
struggle."

Two airlines serving Cape Town, Comair, operator of British Airways
and domestic airline kulula.com reported a fall of nearly 10 per cent
in passengers to the city compared to last year, the report said.

Tourism has boomed in South Africa since the end of apartheid and
the advent of democracy in 1994. Nine million foreign visitors visit
the country dubbed the Rainbow Nation each year - a figure the
government aims to nudge up to 10 million by 2010, the year South
Africa hosts the football World Cup.

While the effects of the international financial squeeze on South
African mining, manufacturing and financial markets are being closely
monitored, this is the first indication that the tourism sector, which
employs 1.2 million people directly and indirectly, could also be
seriously affected. (dpa)