With the advert of FIFA Soccer World Cup 2010 to be hosted in South Africa, many development projects have been laid out in the country. There is also an array of events and festivals that will keep the country rocking a month before and after the matches. In other words the developments, new entertainment projects and festivals collectively transformed South Africa into a Traveler’s paradise…But how far this has taken the flights fares or cheap flights to South Africa?

From last year reviews, the flight sale in the month of July and around the summer vocations started at 350 GBP, closing at the peak of the “peak season” at around 850 GBP in economy class. Some passengers recall that they bought the last fares in around 400 GBP for July flights in May 2009. The participating airlines included big names Qatar, British Airways, Etihad Airways and South African airlines apart.

Today, the cheap flights to South Africa are believed to be starting from and around 450 – 600 GBP! And the dates are getting closer the fares are almost reaching a record high rate. We can not solely blame the airline to be taking advantage of the peak season and matches, because during the last year when the rest of the world was on a “road to recovery” from the world’s greatest Recession, the airline industry only started to collapse. The reason is that out of the many after affects of recession, one biggest after effect on the economy to stabilize was to not spend on luxuries and travel. This brought down the travel industry and the statistics of tourism dropped significantly.

Another reason is the hike in high Octane fuel prices, as where the oil prices dropped the Octane or High Octane air craft fuel prices constantly went up. The last nail in the coffin was the one after another strike in the top airlines. Also, some low budget airline like Belleview was grounded and seized its operations in July-09. Also, there have been no New Routes of any airline or no New airline to South Africa at all.

Today, when the FIFA 2010 Soccer world cup is supposed to stabilize the travel industry and save it from collapsing, the travelers are in a state to afford only very cheap flights or in a quest for fares that are record low. The positive prospective is that some airlines are really offering (though limited) but a fixed number of cheap tickets to South Africa.

Fingers cross, lets wish that this year the FIFA Soccer World Cup proves winning the match of falling economies and fading tourism.