Yes, the ticket sales internationally isn't that bad as widely reported, but, remember that is amount of ticket sales, not necessarily individual people. 1 person can buy up to 7 tickets...I'd say on average the international visitor would probably buy 3 to 5 tickets per person.
And it doesn't just have to be international visitors filling the stadiums, if a stadium is full, who cares who it is, the more South Africans buy tickets, the more succesfull, afterall it is something we're doing for ourselves. The international tourists is a bonus for the hospitality industry.
Ofcourse we won't be seeing the hundreds of thousands extra people as predicted (maybe slightly more tourists than usually in the low May/June/July season) and not the hundreds of extra international flights and charters as we hoped. At the moment there is at least several extra flights loaded ie:
TAP Air Portugal, Iberia, British Airways, Air France, Delta, Ethiopian, Kenya Airways, Air Austral, Air Mauritius all adding capacity be it through extra flights or using larger aircraft. Aerolinas Argentinas is also to fly to JNB, for about 3 weeks, I think 14 flights between 9 and 26 June.
Together with new permanent flights from V Australia (MEL), Jet Airways (BOM), Thai Airways (BKK) and increased capacity and frequency by Malaysia Airlines (KUL) and Qatar Airways (DOH).