Cape Town hotels show strong summer growth

Cape Town-based hotels have had a bumper summer season with the Pepper Club Hotel, for instance, showing a 21% year-on-year (y/y) gain in December 2011 occupancy rates, while January 2012 shot the lights out with a massive 53% y/y surge.

"The increased occupancy figures are in line with the December 2011 STR Global South African Hotel review figures which show that Cape Town hotels saw an increase of 18.1% in occupancy figures during the last quarter of 2011 compared with the same period in 2010, Bruce Deneys, the director of sales and marketing at Pepper Club Hotel said.

Deneys said they had also noticed a shift in markets visiting the hotel over this period, which had contributed to the positive occupancy figures.

"In the past we relied on traditional markets such as the UK, Netherlands and Germany, and while we still receive business from these regions, we are now noticing growth in emerging market visitors, from countries such as Brazil, Columbia, Chile and India.

"We have also seen a significant increase in visitors from China. South Africa Airways' new direct flight from Beijing to Cape Town has contributed to the increase in visitors from the region and will also foster business tourism from the region. The fares are also very competitive, resulting in a favourable response from the Chinese market.

"It was definitely a loss when Air Malaysia discontinued flights from Buenos Aires to Cape Town as far as Latin America business was concerned, but we hope the new direct flight from Beijing will counter that loss," explained Deneys.

He added that the quality of business generated over December and January had also improved.

"While lead times for bookings continue to be very short, we have experienced a 20% increase in the average daily rate this season, as well as length of stay, which averaged 4.5 days from last year's 3 days. It has been a positive start to 2012 and the increase of visitors from emerging markets is a good sign for SA as a whole. Visitor numbers are also expected to grow as these economies expand. India, in particular, is expected to be among the top three global economies by 2050," concludes Deneys.

The number of foreign arrivals in SA increased by 7.6% y/y to 1,080,029 in November 2011 according to Statistics SA with the number of overseas visitors rising by 8.7% y/y to 215,235.

In November 2011, the distribution of overseas tourists by continent was as follows: Europe, 137,584 (63.9%); followed by Asia, 29,722 (13.8%); North America, 26,563 (12.3%); Australasia, 10,267 (4.8%); Central and South America, 7,900 (3.7%) and the Middle East, 3,199 (1.5%).

By country, the UK was the leading source of overseas visitors at 38,286 (17.8%), followed by Germany, 29,849 (13.9%); the US 21,371 (9.9%); The Netherlands, 12,987 (6.0%); France, 11,231 (5.2%); China, 10,935 (5.1%); Australia 8,481 (3.9%) and India, 7,470 (3.5%). Tourists from these eight countries constituted 65.3% of all tourists from overseas countries.

A comparison between movements in November 2010 and November 2011 shows that the number of tourists increased in five of these countries (China, Germany, The Netherlands, USA and India) while the number of tourists declined in the other three countries (France, UK and Australia).

China had the highest increase of 45.3% y/y, while France had the greatest decline of 4.9% y/y.