Cape Town hospitality shows resilience in face of drought

A new report has revealed that the touted water crisis in Cape Town didn’t prove to be as detrimental to leisure and hospitality performances as had been feared.

A study by Price Waterhouse Cooper, collated from industry analyst finding has suggested that a range of measures brought in by local operators muted what was expected in some quarters to be a sharp downturn.

Year on year guest occupancy actually grew by one percent in 2017, according to the firms hospitality industry leader, Pietro Calicchio. Whilst this is a far cry from seven percent recorded in 2016, it is a positive hugely positive result given the mitigating circumstances.

“Tourism has again proven to be resilient in the face of economic and political uncertainty, the impact of the drought and regulatory changes,” said Calicchio.

Revenues garnered from accommodation rose by 4.6 percent to a sizeable $1.25bn (R16.6bn) in 2017 and the PWC report warned that should the drought situation not be improved in due course this year is likely to be a far cry from those figures come 31 December this year.

A further survey by Cape Town’s official tourism promotion agency, Wesgro, has poured further doubt on the continuation the region’s fledgling positive performances finding that January and February bookings for hotels were between 10 and 15 percent down when compared to the same period last year, depending on the individual operations.

It is abundantly clear that the resilience shown to record even modest growth in such conditions must not be left to slide to ruin in 2018. Tsogo Sun most notably is in the process of constructing its own water supply at a showpiece Cape Town property to ensure customer satisfaction and similar measures must be undertaken by others with the utmost haste.