South Africa wants to increase the number of foreign tourist arrivals into the country to 15 million by 2020, up from its seven million figure in 2009, President Jacob Zuma said. Zuma spoke at the signing ceremony to mark South Africa’s entry into the UN World Tourism Organisation’s Golden Book’in Cape Town.

The Global Leaders for Tourism (also known as The Golden Book) is a joint UN World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) and the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) initiative to position travel and tourism higher in the global agenda.

Zuma, who said South Africa had “ambitious but achievable plans” in the sector, stated that the country also aims to increase the number of domestic tourists from 14.6 million in 2009 to 18 million by 2020. He said that the country also targets the creation of 235,000 new tourism jobs by 2020, stressing that everything possible would be done to promote and grow the tourism sector to achieve the goals.