Audrey D’Angelo
South Africa’s attraction for international investors was a major reason for US-based Hilton Hotels to plan expansion in this country, Christopher Nassetta, the president of Hilton Worldwide, said on a whirlwind visit to Cape Town last week.
Pointing out that the majority of regular guests in the group’s hotels were on business, he said this country’s financial stability and well-regulated financial sector would continue to attract international investors and any uncertainty resulting from the present unrest in the mining industry would soon blow over and be forgotten.
“A lot of people in the Western world are looking at South Africa for investment opportunities and see this country as stable. There is no shortage of capital available and investors are always looking for the best returns,” he said.
He said Hilton aimed at having 100 hotels in Africa in the next five years, with 15 in South Africa. Like other hotel groups, it is attracted by the increasing prosperity in many African countries, particularly those where oil or gas has been discovered, and both Angola and Mozambique are on its list.
But Nassetta, who was on his first visit to South Africa, said he was impressed by its tourism potential, particularly in Cape Town. He would be back in the city with his family and Hilton would promote South Africa as a holiday destination. This would be helped by the number of airlines flying into the country, particularly those from the Middle East, which brought people from all over the world.
Although Nassetta pointed out that the group had been in Africa for many years, it had only two hotels in this country – in Durban and Johannesburg – until it opened a third five-star venue in central Cape Town two years ago. It will have a fourth when the Pezula resort and spa in Knysna is redeveloped as one of its top-of-the-range Conrad resorts.
But the majority of its new hotels will be from the wide range of medium-priced and budget hotels in the group in smaller towns.
Nassetta said that the same clients often stayed in different types of hotel according to whether they were on business or on holiday with their families.
He said that Hilton’s loyalty programme ensured that its thousands of regular travellers from many countries in the world would stay in one of the group’s hotels wherever they went.
The selection of hotels it offered would be as broad as possible. But once HIlton had 50 hotels spread out throughout Africa the next 50 would probably be limited-service establishments for people who wanted only clean, comfortable accommodation.
Jan van der Putten, the group’s vice-president for Africa and the Indian Ocean islands, said this country offered wonderful opportunities for growth.