Road and air travel patterns – and a drop in mall activity – clearly indicated South Africans opted for downtime over the 2025 Easter holidays.

The drop in traffic over the Easter weekend, and again on Freedom Day, was even lower than normal weekend levels, but the 550 000 000km travelled on the Thursday before the holiday weekend was a high for April, followed by the just over 500 000 000km travelled on the Friday before Freedom Day.

Trips during April 2025



Distance travelled during April 2025



When it came to air travel, OR Tambo International Airport was busier than Cape Town International Airport, with traffic up 18% on last year when the airports recorded approximately the same number of visitors. Interestingly, all three of South Africa’s main airports experienced a quieter holiday period than in 2024.

In 2024, OR Tambo and Cape Town International recorded a similar volume of arriving passengers. However, year-to-date figures for 2025 show that OR Tambo is 18% busier than Cape Town International.

Predictably, shopping malls were quieter than usual as many consumers would have been on the beach, taking a game drive or visiting family. Gateway Theatre of Shopping in KwaZulu-Natal and Mall of Africa in Gauteng were the busiest malls over the Easter weekend, as they are usually, but with less visitors.

Other busier-than-usual malls over Easter were the V&A Waterfront and Canal Walk in Cape Town, as well as the Pavillion and Cornubia in KwaZulu-Natal, indicative of the inflow of visitors to those areas.

When it came to travel to another province, most Kwazulu-Natal and Western Cape residents opted to stay home, with only 10% and 6% respectively venturing outside of the province.

One in five Gauteng residents travelled outside the province’s borders, with Hartbeespoort, Drakensberg/Midlands, and the North and South coasts of KwaZulu-Natal being popular destinations. Limpopo destinations were popular among lower income Gautengers, while Limpopo and KwaZulu-Natal shared the honours among those from higher income brackets.


Provinces visited by lower-income Gauteng travellers




Provinces visited by higher-income Gauteng travellers




The busiest service station stops (yellow dots on the map below) were in Gauteng, Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal, while those service stations which saw the biggest increase over the Easter period compared to their normal patterns were primarily in Limpopo.