South Africa and its people have indeed benefited from the on-going 2010 FIFA World Cup™

This week the Department of Home Affairs announced that 682507 tourists entered the country. The entire travel and tourism sector has experienced a boom since the start of the tournament. Car hire companies, airlines and transport services, for instance, were busier and bigger than they have ever been.

The South African economy has received a boost from international tourists flocking the country to watch the 2010 soccer World Cup.

During the period leading up to the kick-off of the World Cup and the first week of tournament matches, spending by international visitors on Visa-branded payment cards exceeded US$128 million (R974 million), up 54 percent from US$83 million (R629 million) during the same period in 2009.

The number of transactions from June 1 through June 20 was 900,000 (45,000 per day on average), up 60 percent from nearly 600,000 (30,000 a day on average) during the same 20 days in 2009.

The advertising economy in South Africa is set to receive a massive $200m boost this year as brands such as Nike plough millions into targeting World Cup fans Nike, which is not an official sponsor of the World Cup, has just unveiled a campaign on Africa’s largest digital advertising screen on a 30-storey building in Johannesburg, which displays messages sent by fans via Facebook and Twitter that will appear alongside digital images of football stars signed to the brand.

I think after reading all the blogs posts of this week, South Africans can be proud to host such a good and successful Soccer World Cup.