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Cautious optimism remains the order of the day as Cape Town starts to experience the beginnings of its traditional summer tourism season with an influx of domestic tourists.
Whilst it’s not expected to be a bumper season, the early findings of a Cape Town Tourism industry survey conducted across the accommodation, tour, restaurant and attraction sectors in November 2010 and then again in mid-December 2010, confirm that more and more visitors are arriving for the holidays, albeit in many cases at the last minute.
60% of accommodation establishments polled did not notice a year on year increase for the period October to November 2010 but 57.7% of respondents have observed an upswing in occupancy figures since the beginning of December 2010, largely due to increased numbers from the domestic market.
“It’s important to remember that our international peak tourism season is from mid January till the end of March,” says Mariette du Toit-Helmbold, CEO of Cape Town Tourism, “so it’s too soon to tell what kind of a tourism season we will end up with, but our partners and members are predicting that it will not be a bumper season, although some are reporting an above-average season.”
ACSA also reported an overall (domestic and international) upswing of 4% for arrivals in October and November 2010, with domestic arrivals taking the lion’s share of this surge.
Hotels are reporting small groups, couples (topping the list at 59.6%) and families as their predominant guest profiles. An ever-increasing tendency towards online booking may tie into the fact that it is now also a major platform for advertising of the specials and reduced room rates that just under 50% of survey respondents had put in place during October and November 2010. No less than 78.90% of bookings were made within the month leading up to the guests stay or at the last minute and the UK remains our top international source market.
Last minute bookings are just one of the rogue challenges that face Cape Town’s tourism landscape. Unpredictable economic fluctuations and, more recently, climatological upsets, are factors that can influence travel patterns significantly, making numbers harder to predict.
Says Du Toit-Helmbold; “We must stay ahead of trends and use some of these trends to our advantage. For instance, promoting the great Cape Town weather to visitors currently facing severe winter conditions; if they are willing to travel at the last minute we can offer great value-for-money offers. Innovative marketing can allow us to turn challenges into opportunities for Cape Town "
She goes on to say: "Our member surveys have proven to be an accurate indicator of trends and traffic. The findings of our World Cup surveys were later verified by studies that the City of Cape Town and other organisations executed, but we feel that more should be done to measure and evaluate tourism statistics effectively and speedily. For instance, our top star hotels may be reporting lower occupancy rates but we now have a lot more beds. Equally, there may be a substantial amount of visitors in town who are staying with relatives and we are not picking up those stats.”
To date, despite there being random evidence of visitors coming because of, or returning after, the World Cup, there is no major trend to suggest that an upsurge of World Cup-inspired visitors are arriving. Again, this may escalate as Cape Town moves into its peak international tourism season and later in 2011.
Cape Town Tourism will survey its membership again in February 2011.
Theodore is the Co-Founder and Managing Editor of TravelDailyNews Media Network; his responsibilities include business development and planning for TravelDailyNews long-term opportunities.
