The festive season that helped us recover
KWAZULU-NATAL’S tourist sector can breathe a sigh of relief.
For the first time in two years, since the Covid-19 pandemic hit, early indicators are that the festive season bode well for the sector.
eThekwini
Mxolisi Kaunda, the eThekwini mayor, said close to 200 000 tourists visited eThekwini over the Christmas weekend alone.
He said throughout the festive period, starting from December 15 to January 4, eThekwini recorded over 80% occupancy rates across its accommodation establishments.
This resulted in restaurants, eateries in the townships and other destinations seeing more foot traffic.
Kaunda said that over the Christmas weekend, preliminary indicators showed that visitors spent close to R150 million. The contribution to the city’s GDP is approximately R350 million.
Kaunda said in the past year eThekwini's tourism industry lost hundreds of millions in revenue as a result of Covid-19.
“When it came to tourism, we were not taking chances. That’s why we have our Festive Season Management Committee (FESMAC) that assists us to meet the needs of our visitors.
“We will forever be indebted to the people of eThekwini for their unrelenting hospitality. We desperately needed this development because we were bruised by the pandemic and multitudes of our people lost jobs. I am happy that following these figures, it means we are doing things right,” he said.
“Undisputedly the warmest place to be, Durban welcomed holidaymakers from various locations throughout South Africa. KwaZulu-Natal accounted for 34% of visitors, 31% came from Gauteng, 12% from the Eastern Cape and 8% from the Western Cape.”
Provincial
Ravi Pillay, the MEC for Economic Development, Tourism and Environmental Affairs in KZN, said it was a reasonably good December in the province, mainly due to the domestic tourist influx from several provinces.
“I think over the Christmas period the average (occupancy) rate over the entire province was likely to be around 65%. Coming from a Covid-19 background, that is a pretty decent outcome,” he said.
Pillay said the hospitality industry had suffered for the past two years.
“The industry had to go through the first three (Covid-19) waves, then we had the unrest in July, and then the election period was not the best for tourism either.
“However, November was looking good for us, because we were working quite hard to market the domestic tourism side,” he said.
Pillay said the intra-African trade fair at the ICC, which had over 10 000 delegates, of which 2 500 were international delegates, was a booster as the first big ICC event in almost two years.
“So we were looking positively at a good December, but then we were hit with a fourth wave and the Omicron variant, which put a damper on things. Then there was the reaction of the other countries, with cancellations of flights damaging our international markets significantly.
“However, we were very clear that we had to focus on our domestic market and we marketed that quite extensively. The key part of the marketing was that KZN is safe for travel and we also linked it to our vaccination programme. From our experience, the higher the levels of vaccination, the greater the confidence people have to move about and engage in tourism activities. This was a very important part of our programme.
“But we also relied on our strengths as KZN. We have 600km of beaches from the north to the south, which provides an opportunity for anyone and everyone to have their own niche of space on the coastline.”
Pillay said other tourism sites, including the Drakensberg Mountains and Midlands Meander, also remained key attractions.
“We also banked on the fact that despite all reservation, people were wanting to have a break, coupled with them wanting to be safe and therefore our tourism industry responded well to that and made sure that all the disciplines, controls and protocols were in place at the various facilities. We are pleased with the outcome.”
Pinky Radebe, the head of public relations and communications for Tourism KwaZulu-Natal (TKZN) said: “Overall this was a good festive season for the province."
She said the influx of tourists in the province has assisted the industry to recover from the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“The tourism industry has been the most resilient sector over the past two years. We know that tourism will never be the same again, but we are confident that we are on the road to recovery."
Radebe said while the travel ban was unfortunate for the industry, it still performed well domestically.
Industry feedback
Brett Tungay, the chairperson of the Federated Hospitality Association of Southern Africa (Fehasa) for the east coast (KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape) said: “We unfortunately don’t have definite numbers from our members, but from just calling and speaking to members in KZN alone, we are told it was overall a good season.
“We can say having no alcohol ban definitely helped on the food and beverage side, with numbers definitely being up from the previous year during the December period,” he said.
Tungay said the lack of foreign tourists due to travel bans, slightly impacted the industry.
“Not having the foreign arrivals has hurt. However, the foreign tourists are not a huge number over the December festive season in KZN, but they are that little icing on the cake in terms of numbers which we did not have.
“But in general the South African domestic market did take up a lot of that slack which did help.
“We are just hopeful that this year will be a revival of the hospitality industry,” he said.
Rosemary van Staden, the national chairperson of the National Accommodation Association of South Africa (NAA-SA), said: “The season was good, but could have been better.”
NAA-SA is a network of guesthouses, bed and breakfasts and self-catering accommodation across South Africa.
“We have had various feedback from our members in KZN. We were fortunate and thankful that there was no further lockdown as we were all on edge pending that announcement from the president.
“From the feedback from our members, it can be said that there was between 70%-100% occupancy at the various accommodation places.
“Members said their busiest period started from mid-December until this past weekend.
“So for many it was a good season compared to 2020. However, this one season (2021) did not rescue the industry from the damage it has already suffered,” she said.