SANParks releases World Cup beds

Johannesburg - South African National Parks (SANParks) has released some of the accommodation that was reserved for the 2010 Fifa World Cup back to the domestic market.

It announced this week that a large portion of the accommodation previously booked for 2010 World Cup visitors would be available to the public from Thursday, at standard rates.

According to the general manager of public relations at SANParks, Reynold Thakuli, this was done according to an agreement with MATCH Services, which handles accommodation bookings for Fifa.

In the agreement, SANParks agreed to contract a maximum 30% of its inventory for use over the tournament period, with specific release periods if the inventory was not sold on time by MATCH.

SANParks tourism and marketing executive Glenn Phillips said in December last year 9 132 room nights were released, with a further 14 731 to be released this week.

"This is good news for our loyal South African visitor base as this means they will now have further opportunity to book for places in their favourite SANParks destinations," said Phillips.

The beds released are in various camps in Mapungubwe National Park, Golden Gate National Park, Wilderness National Park, Tsitsikamma National Park, Mountain Zebra National Park, Karoo National Park, Addo Elephant National Park, Augrabies National Park and Mokala National Park.

Phillips added that accommodation in the Kruger National Park's Skukuza, Pretoriuskop and Berg-en-dal camps would also be available for booking, although Skukuza had received a "reasonable amount of reservations" from tourists to the World Cup.

Meanwhile, from April 1 visitors to the Kruger National Park will be allowed to check in from 2pm instead of midday, and the checkout time will change from 9am to 10am.

"This will allow guests to enjoy their breakfast or stay a little longer," said the park's head of tourism and marketing, Lucy Nhlapho.

She added that if the accommodation was available before 2pm, guests would be allowed to book in earlier.

- African Eye News Service