The opening of inter-provincial leisure travel in South Africa – which has now been formally gazetted following the announcement by President Cyril Ramaphosa over the weekend – will provide a much-needed lifeline for accommodation providers who are reliant on the domestic market from Gauteng.
Theresa Emerick, Managing Director of online accommodation booking system provider NightsBridge, said that for establishments in many other provinces – especially Mpumalanga, North West and Limpopo – inter-provincial leisure travel needed to be opened.
“Even with the small reopening of intra-provincial domestic leisure travel, we have already seen that there is pent-up demand for tourism and travel,” she said. NightsBridge confirmed that it had recorded 9 389 bookings across 2 646 properties for the long weekend earlier this month (August 9), with the Western Cape receiving most of the benefit.
Assessing forward bookings for South Africa’s high season, NightsBridge reported that 25 630 bookings had been made for December 2020 to February 2021, about a third of those made over the same period last year (77 175 bookings).
COO of Hospitality for Sun International, Graham Wood, said with interprovincial travel restrictions lifted, the group’s leisure hotels and resorts – such as Sun City – would finally be able to reopen. “We will advise of Sun City’s reopening date in due course.”
He added that while it was unfortunate that the curfew could not be further relaxed, lifting the “onerous” ban on alcohol would further boost footfall to SI properties.
“Our current health and safety protocols will remain in place, and all Sun International properties now bear the World Travel and Tourism Council’s (WTTC) safe stamp of approval, verifying that the COVID-19 health and safety protocols we have in place meet international benchmarks.”
South African National Parks (SANParks) reiterated that it had introduced stringent hygiene protocols in an effort to curb the risk of the spread of COVID-19.
“In line with the government protocols and regulations and in the interests of the health and safety of visitors and staff, SANParks will introduce new visitor management procedures to manage visitor volumes in the parks,” said Chief Executive Officer, Fundisile Mketeni.
He added that SANParks had opened its overnight accommodation to intra-provincial guests on August 14 in most of its parks and, therefore, the facilities were already well equipped to welcome inter-provincial guests.
