INLSA

Cape Town hotels are expecting a fair summer season.

BRONWYNNE JOOSTE

Metro Writer

THE hospitality industry is expecting a “fair” summer holiday season for Cape Town, where a number of hotels and restaurants have closed this year.

The Federated Hospitality Association of Southern Africa (Fedhasa) Cape had its annual meeting yesterday and released the results of its pricing survey, in which city hotel rates were compared with some overseas.

More than 90 percent of Fedhasa Cape’s members expected that occupancy levels would be good this season.

Dirk Elzinga, the chairman of Fedhasa Cape, said the industry had come through a “pretty bad year”.

Four hotels and 10 restaurants had closed in the past year, and occupancy rates in winter had been the worst in years. But the forecast for this holiday season was less gloomy.

“The expectations are not that bad. We have become more realistic, but we expect good occupancies.”

Hotels expected an occupancy rate of between 60 percent and 80 percent for this holiday season.

Elzinga said many travellers booked online but not well in advance of their trips.

This meant the occupancy rates could be even higher than predicted.

On average, the revenue for each available room for the past year had been 10 percent less than that last year.

But the organisation had also compared the room revenue in October last year with that in the same month this year, and found the figures were up 5 percent.

Elzinga said this showed the industry had early signs of recovery from the impact of the economic slump.

He said occupancy rates had been at their peak, 80 percent, in the summer season of 2008.

Elzinga said the city was offering competitive prices and was not overpricing.

The prices of a basket of Cape Town hotels had been compared with those in cities in other parts of the world – Barcelona, Madrid, Munich, Vancouver, Boston, Nice and Melbourne – which were not capitals but also popular as conference destinations.

Cape Town’s prices were found not to be unreasonably high.

Apart from Barcelona, Cape Town also offered the widest range of hotels.

Even rates at the city’s five-star hotels were in line with international prices.

“People wrongly think the price of a five-star hotel should be lower in Africa.”

Although some establishments had closed this year, many new outlets had opened.

bronwynne.jooste@inl.co.za