Johannesburg - While the doors of the rest of the world, as it were, are shut with the global credit crisis, Africa is open for business. So says Nawfal Bendefa, international hotel development manager at the Marriot Group.
At an investment conference for the hospitality industry Bendefa, together with other industry leaders, outlined current conditions in the global hotel industry.
According to Bench Events chairperson Jonathan Worsley, an industry researcher among other things, revenue per available room (RevPAR) in Britain fell 3.2% over the past year. RevPAR is a statistic widely accepted by the industry.
Europe as a whole, he says, is already showing contraction. The Middle East and Africa, however, are growing at 24.9% compared with Asia's 11.6% and North America's 2%.
In Africa and the Middle East, Lebanon (60%) and Egypt (41%) have set the pace, with South Africa growing 10%.
Worsley adds that occupancies have generally declined worldwide, but tariffs are holding at the same level. He says the American airline industry is 12% to 15% down, and US flights that are indeed available are very expensive.
Pam Golding hospitality director Joop Demes points out that 90% of the South African industry's income is derived from African travellers and that the business is therefore sheltered from the negative circumstances in the US.
He reckons RevPAR growth in South Africa over the past 18 months has been higher than that in the Middle East when calculated in rands.
According to Worsley, there is still a lot of room for growth in most South African cities.
RCI director for business development Brett Archibald reports that tourists at the 2006 World Cup soccer tournament in Germany, who saw what the country and its neighbours, Austria and Switzerland looked like, are now returning in droves to see more of those countries. He believes South Africa will derive just as much advantage from the exposure that it receives during the 2010 tournament.
This, he reckons, makes South Africa an exciting place in which to invest.
Puneet Chhatwal, head of development at the Rezidor hotel group, says room prices in Germany have now, however, come under pressure because of an oversupply.
Occupancies in South African hotels are currently high.
Nevertheless, Demes noted earlier that 35 hotels with 6 300 rooms were currently being built in South Africa. In all, this represents an investment of R9.8bn, creating 75 000 permanent jobs. Most of the hotels will be completed by the end of next year.
- Sake