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A total of 27.6% of all tourists arrived in the country by air, he said in a speech prepared for delivery at his department's sixth annual tourism conference in Sandton, Gauteng on Monday.
"Our key to growth in the tourism industry is aviation... We believe that tourists from air markets could double if we have more flights, the right packaging, the right connectivity, competitive pricing and the right partnership with the aviation industry."
Van Schalkwyk said there were nine core "air markets", which accounted for 55% of international tourist arrivals. These were Australia, France, Germany, India, Kenya, Nigeria, Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States.
"What's interesting is they spend 61% of the foreign spend in our country," he said.
Last year, a total of 8.3 million tourists had come to South Africa.
"We, however, have enormous potential to grow our industry as there are over 76 million tourists that have been identified as our potential market."
This was from the nine core air markets alone.
Van Schalkwyk said government's "airlift strategy" was showing impressive results in terms of bringing tourists to the country.
"Between September 2006 and January this year, rights for almost 1.4 million additional seats per year were secured on the network," he said.
