Cape Town’s gain is Durban pain — again

Gerda Pretorius was pleasantly surprised to find she was making history while waiting to board the Table Mountain cableway.

The 68-year-old from Bloemfontein was pulled out of the queue and presented with a complimentary gift hamper — for being the cable car’s 31-millionth visitor. “We haven’t been on the mountain in more than 30 years and today was a nice surprise,” she said, as one of 100,000 cable car users in December.

Pretorius’s happy milestone was just one of many highlights for Cape tourism which in some respects eclipsed pre-Covid levels — in another case of gain from Durban’s pain.

In 2019, plane tickets sales to Cape Town were 40% more than to Durban while in 2022 this increased to 120%, said figures released this week by Flight Centre Travel. This December about 100% more people flew to Cape Town than to Durban.

“In 2019 ... Cape Town [took] 58% of accommodation bookings. In 2022 and 2023 this is a very different picture, with an average of 86% ... going to Cape Town over Durban,” the group said.

“Interestingly, the average domestic ticket price is up 33% on 2019 but down 15% on the previous year. International is up 25% on 2019 but flat with the previous year.”

Cape Town’s international air ticket sales soared 120% compared with 2019, and in December it registered a record 317,000 overseas visitors. While domestic air travel decreased 9% compared with 2019, ticket sales for domestic and international visitors rose compared with 2022, with international up 60%, according to Flight Centre stats.

The V&A Waterfront, the city’s premier tourist attraction, this week confirmed it had its best season yet. Retail sales of R1.2bn for December were 16% up on 2022, and its New Year’s Eve event drew 80,000 visitors.

“The Waterfront has had its strongest festive season yet, with record visitors and sales,” said CEO David Green. “Retail sales and hotels, which are more influenced by international tourists, are more than 40% up December on December,” Green said.

The V&A’s year-on-year figure of 25million visitors was up 25% on 2022.

Cape Town’s maritime economy also recorded a solid season, with a record number of cruise ships and cruise ship passengers.

The Cape’s picturesque marinas attracted a large proportion of the record 220 cruising yachts entering the country between August and January which added about R74m to the local economy, according to stats released this week by the Ocean Sailing Association of Southern Africa (Osasa). Founder director Jenny Crickmore-Thompson said each visiting yacht crew spent an estimated R340,000 during their stay.

“Some had extensive family come visiting for two to three weeks at a time, while some ships needed major repair or maintenance work done — not a bad boost to the economy,” Crickmore-Thompson said in Osasa’s latest sector newsletter.

In Durban, beaches that had been plagued by high E. coli levels for much of the year were open for most of the holiday season, but this was not enough to woo tourists in great numbers. Officials say while the KwaZulu-Natal south coast experienced a positive season, Durban and Umhlanga fared only marginally better than last year.

The shift among travellers to KZN choosing hinterland resorts over coastal parts was evident, said Tourism Business Council of South Africa CEO Tshifhiwa Tshivhengwa.

“Not as many people went to the KZN coast, especially Durban. They travelled to other parts like the inland resorts. The Drakensberg and many other areas are still doing well, with many travelling there.”

The trend followed the previous festive season, which was largely marred by infrastructure, water and sanitation problems as well as closure of popular beaches owing to high E. coli levels. This resulted in the loss of millions of rands in tourism spend.

Despite improvements this year, there were still visibly fewer people on Durban’s popular beaches than pre-Covid 19.

Duncan Heafield, chair of the Umhlanga Tourism Association, said they had a marginal improvement compared with last year.

“The fact that this year the beaches remained open was paramount to the increase, albeit lacklustre, in tourism to Umhlanga and the northern corridor,” he said. “Visitors want to have certainty in what they are spending their money on and are definitely considering the provision of basic services like water and electricity as key.”

Hotel and short-stay occupancy was 68% to 72%, while timeshare ended at 94% and guesthouses and B&Bs were about 85%.