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Johannesburg - The government is on the verge of suspending business with South African hotels that refuse to make their rooms available to soccer controlling body Fifa's accommodation agency.
This could be a sensitive issue for these hotels because the largest part of the industry's revenue comes from the government sector.
Protea Hotels group executive chairperson Otto Stehlik, a member of the ministerial advisory Council for the 2010 Soccer World Cup issued this warning on Tuesday at an investment conference for the hospitality industry presented by the Tourism Business Council of South Africa (TBSCA).
According to Stehlik, Match, Fifa's accommodation agent, has so far contracted only half of the envisaged 60 000 rooms.
The largest hotel groups, including Southern Sun, City Lodge, Protea and Legacy, together with industry bodies such as Fedhasa, have been negotiating with Fifa over the past two years to draw up a fair contract.
"We'll be making a lot of money," said Stehlik. But, he notes, there's a small part of the hotel industry that is steadfastly refusing to make its rooms available to Match because of "ignorance or greed".
These players, who have not been named, apparently have to the end of October to sign the contract with Match. They have thus far refused to do so because they believe they can make more money doing it themselves.
After October their names will be handed to government, which is prepared to impose a boycott against them.
After the conference Fedhasa's executive chairperson Brett Dungan announced that private enterprises doing business with government could participate in the boycott.
Stehlik says the resisting hoteliers are placing the World Cup heritage in danger.
Match's Adam Brown pointed out that if the organisation did not have enough rooms available at reasonable tariffs spectators would simply stay away.
Match has taken the unusual step of including guesthouses and lodges in its inventory. This makes 5 000 rooms available. School and university hostels can also be roped in, but if there are still too few rooms the organisers will let rooms in ships possibly to be berthed in Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, East London and Durban.
According to Stehlik there are enough such ships available, but this would be a last resort since SA's tourism industry would lose the revenue.
Brown states that the deadline for the hotel groups is the end of October because the inventory needs to be distributed to the 162 tour operators making group reservations in various countries.
"Owners offering accommodation will thus find it in their own interest to sign the agreement."
Individual guesthouses and lodges will still be accepted after October as those looking for this type of accommodation are mostly individuals who can find it on Fifa's webpage.
- Sake24