The global economic crisis may not be such a bad thing for South African tourism after all, given its effect on the Rand exchange rates, and resultant greater affordability as a destination for international tourists.\u00a0 Domestic tourism too should benefit from the exchange rate volatility, in that locals may switch to local holidays over the festive season, instead of going overseas.<\/p>\n
The outlook for 2009 and 2010 is favourable, given the Confederations Cup and British Lions Tour taking place in winter 2009, and the soccer World Cup taking place in winter 2010.\u00a0 Winter traditionally is a very low income period for the Western Cape in particular.<\/p>\n
The past week has seen the US dollar exceed R 10, its weakest ever,\u00a0 and exchange rates of R 18 to the pound sterling and R 14 to the Euro.\u00a0\u00a0 It is the dollar exchange rate volatility that may cost the country a petrol price decrease next month, and also may see an\u00a0interest rate increase instead of the hoped-for\u00a0decrease.<\/p>\n
The tourism industry appears to be optimistic to date about the effect of the international credit crunch.\u00a0\u00a0 Tourism Business Africa<\/strong> quotes Joop Demes of\u00a0Pam Golding Hospitality as saying that the hotel market grew by 19% in the first six months of this year compared to the same period last year.\u00a0 Growth is in Gauteng, and particlurly for hotels\u00a0at OR Thambo airport in Johannesburg.\u00a0\u00a0 Revenue per available room has increased by 16 %, and by 19 % for 5-star hotels, and by 25% in Johannesburg.\u00a0 Demes says that about three-quarters of the country’s 57 000 hotel rooms are booked by locals, driven in particular by the MICE market of conferences and meetings, as well as budget holidays.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Travel agents are seeing a switch to domestic products. Their international clients are booking accommodation inclusive of meals, as a result of the exchange rate\u00a0weakening, and\u00a0are paying more promptly, to avoid further price increases, reports Travel News Weekly<\/strong>.<\/p>\n The credit crunch is also driving locals to game reserves, instead of overseas, says FEDHASA KwaZulu-Natal, as well as to beach hotels in the province.<\/p>\n Southern Sun Hotels is confidently predicting that 2009 will be busier than 2010, not only because of the Confederations Cup and British Lions Tour, but also due to the elections and inauguration of the new President,\u00a0Soccerex, the Australian and English cricket tours, and the FIFA World Cup Final Draw, which takes place in Cape Town in December 2009,\u00a0reports Travel News<\/strong> Weekly<\/strong>.\u00a0\u00a0 Southern Sun has\u00a0contracted about 10000 of its rooms to MATCH, the FIFA accommodation agency, and is the single largest accommodation provider for the World Cup 2010.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The global economic crisis may not be such a bad thing for South African tourism after all, given its effect on the Rand exchange rates, and resultant greater affordability as a destination for international tourists.\u00a0 Domestic tourism too should benefit from the exchange rate volatility, in that locals may switch to local holidays over the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false},"categories":[7,3,22,11],"tags":[32367,17,16,18,27,99,23,205,204,203,202,201,5,206,32368],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t