Betting on SA’s grand hotel recovery
With new hotels popping up, and confirmation that a new Club Med resort will be built soon near Durban at an estimated cost of R2bn, there’s finally money in the industry once again. But can the recovery in tourism numbers — 4 million visitors arrived in South Africa in the first six months of this year — support this revival? SBG Securities suggests that at current arrival levels — 294,000 more people arriving per month in the six months to June than in the same period last year — foreign travel could reach pre-Covid levels in the first quarter of 2024. In the meantime, domestic tourism seems to be filling the gap.