Tourism authorities in KwaZulu-Natal say the industry is slowly picking up after being devastated by the strict lockdown restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The province expects to welcome more leisure visitors over this Easter weekend, compared to the previous year. And, many pilgrims around the country will also travel to participate in religious gatherings.
KZN Tourism says it is anticipating an average occupancy rate of 50% for hospitality establishments.
The conferencing sector is also experiencing an upturn since lockdown regulations were eased to Alert Level 1.
The tourism industry contributes about 3% to the country’s Gross Domestic Product. But the lockdown brought the industry to its knees, with many businesses in the industry closing down. Others managed to stay afloat, thanks to the relief aid through government’s recovery plan.
The travel ban across the world has hurt the South African travel industry, especially those destinations, which depend largely on international tourism.
However, authorities say Durban’s and the province’s attraction was anchored in domestic tourism.
Samantha Croft of Tsogo Sun in KwaZulu-Natal says they opened the Edward Hotel last month while the Maharani Hotel was opened this week. The Edward Hotel was one of the first to close its doors because of the pandemic’s effect on the industry.
“What has worked to our advantage under the circumstances is that we have been largely a domestic tourism destination, and then international numbers have been secondary in terms of our tourism market share. And so, we are really pushing for further growth domestically. Of course, starting with recovery, we work very closely with the South African tourism and other provinces in ways to recover.”
Tourism authorities say the spike in bookings is spread evenly across the province.
Tourism KwaZulu-Natal acting CEO, Phindile Makwakwa says they anticipate a 50% occupancy rate in holiday establishments. They expect more than 100 000 tourists overnight.
Destinations such as the Drakensberg and coastal areas on the far north coast are very popular.
“Uthukela is sitting at about 80% as well as Sodwana – a coastal offering on the northern part of KZN – is sitting at about 85%, and so all around we are seeing tourists changing the way they travel. They are exploring more of the province and of course, it’s good for our economy. We have a projection … this, we (think) will make, from the weekend, just over R700 million impact into our local economy.”
Earlier this week, President Cyril Ramaphosa confirmed that inter-provincial travel will still be allowed. However, he advised South Africans to limit their travel as far as possible.
Visitors from Gauteng and Limpopo say they are happy that beaches will remain open throughout the Easter weekend.
“We are very happy that the beaches are open. We are from Johannesburg. We’ve come down for a couple of days to Durban. And we are very excited to be here. Due to the hard lockdown last year, we had to leave back home early,” says one visitor.
“The original plan was to come here during December 2020, but the introduction of lockdown resulted in us cancelling. And then we made the arrangement that whatever we have paid for our flights, for our hotels, we can use when the time allows,” says another visitor.
Tourism authorities and industry players are confident that a successful COVID-19 vaccine roll-out will lead to the opening of international travel routes and increase local appetite for travel to help the industry recover.
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