South Africa

There were 5,300,000 internet users in South Africa (representing 10.8% of the population) in September 2009, according to Internet World Stats. This was up by 120.8% since 2000. (Internet World Stats, April 2010)

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Not only are there more people online in South Africa, but they're spending more time online and viewing more content, according to Nielsen Online. The number of South African unique browsers and pages viewed both increased by 25% between December 2007 and December 2008, while total time spent increased by 45%.

Nielsen online's findings also show that the South African internet population is ageing slightly.

South African internet population by age group in 2008:
- Under 25: 16% (-1.0%)
- 25-34: 35% (+0.1%)
- 35-49: 36% (+0.3%)
- 50+: 13% (+-0.6%)

The audience is also becoming more English-speaking centric; not only is it the dominant language (56%) but it has increased its share by the greatest amount (+1.9%). (Nielsen Online, January 2009)

South African Tourism has signed a creative partnership deal with TripAdvisor, taking advantage of the world's largest and most popular travel community's content to promote South Africa as a diverse and exciting tourist destination for 2010.

The fully integrated campaign, " the Ultimate Experience hub", offers South African Tourism a unique opportunity to engage with the TripAdvisor community, providing travellers with a dynamic blend of SA Tourism and TripAdvisor content giving the user comprehensive travel information to help plan their perfect trip.

As the country prepares itself to be the focus of this year's World Cup, SA Tourism is keen to promote itself as a destination with far more on offer than just football. The TripAdvisor campaign, a six figure deal, has been developed to educate all types of travellers about the range of experiences on offer. The markets targeted by the campaign are the UK, the US, Australia, France, Italy, Germany and the Netherlands on TripAdvisor's English sites.

The Ultimate Experience hub focuses on three key themes; Adventure and Wildlife, Culture and Nature and Entertainment and Leisure. Each tab will feature TripAdvisor's top rated attractions, as reviewed by real travellers, photos, videos and exciting content about South Africa.

The TripAdvisor partnership offers travellers the opportunity to engage with their destination in an interactive manner and to place South Africa at the forefront of conversations that are taking place online. (TravelDailyNews, February 2010)