South Africa hotel occupancy dropped to 17% in four months
South Africa hospitality industry has been hit severely by the lockdown imposed in the country to curtail the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. Industry expert believes the sector might not be able to withstand the harsh condition any longer following a sharp decrease in hotel occupancy from 60% to 17% in the last 3 months even as the country enters its third phase of the lockdown.
According to capetalk.co.za, Christelle Grohmann, specialist tourism unit Director at BDO South Africa doesn’t believe the industry can survive many more months of lockdown noting that there are 1.5 million jobs in the tourism sector. The state of South Africa’s leisure travel sector is dire. Lockdown level 3 has not allowed for the reopening of leisure accommodation.She spoke in an interview to Media personality and breakfast show host Refilwe Moloto.
How many travellers are usually in the country?Normally South Africa sees about 28 million domestic trips and about 10 million international trips per year, says Grohman.We would have had roughly about 900,000 international travellers a month into the market.
There has always been a significant local leisure and business travel market that supports hotels and b&bs in the domestic market, she adds. Bit she says, business travel, which is all that is currently allowed, is not enough to keep the establishments going especially for the larger ones. Hotels are really not reaching economies of scale. So we’ve dropped from just below 60% occupancy in March to around 17% now.The figure of 17% is only for those hotels that are open. Many remain closed, she explains.
Combined with that, rates are also 30% lower.She says many in the industry are concerned the bank payment holiday and Ters relief payments are coming to an end.
For these operations that have managed to hold out, it’s now D-Day.For retirees who sunk savings into a property for Airbnb for their monthly income, this also has serious ramifications, she says, so there is a knock-on effect beyond that which may have been foreseen.
The industry has developed the safety protocols that need to be in place and this information was sent to government.
