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A view of a Durban beach.
Durban is close to equaling pre-COVID 19 festive season visitor numbers thanks to hard work over the past year to market attractions, beef up safety and rehabilitate storm damaged sewage infrastructure.
Durban Tourism deputy director Winile Mntungwa says preliminary figures show that average hotel occupancy rates in the metro jumped from last year’s 60 to 65 percent, to between 75 and 80 percent this year.
Visitor numbers are only about 2 percent off from pre-COVID figures. Direct tourism spend this festive season is estimated at R1.9 billion, with a R4.5 billion contribution to the GDP.
Mntungwa says they can see that their hard work is paying off.
“The infrastructure maintenance and rehabilitation, the city has made that a priority. Such that where in terms of where we are now, we are sitting in a better position. Because you would know that when beaches at the beginning of December were closed, there was a swift turnaround in terms of maintenance. And then the beaches were opened again and operational. And the other thing is also instilling the confidence and rebuilding the brand of the destination to say Durban is the place to be in terms of being a leisure destination, Durban is the place to be in terms of safety.”
Mntungwa says with new investments that have been launched, they expect tourism figures to improve further.
“And this is just the beginning. In the future, next year, we’re actually going to be at a much more incremental, more investment has actually gone into building new attractions like just a month ago we were launching the reinvestment of the amusement park in the coastal area. And so those things are actually indicative of international attractions that our visitors can look forward to in the future. Our sky car, there’s construction that is happening within Moses Mabhida Stadium, so that again as a tourism attraction will be up and running.”
Meanwhile, one Durban hotel group says they’ve had a bumper season this festive period. Coastlands Hotels and Resort CEO Saantha Naidu says their two hotels in Umhlanga had a 90 to 100 percent occupancy the past two weeks. The group has five other hotels elsewhere in the metro.
Naidu says Umhlanga has evolved as a tourist destination.
“I think Umhlanga is a different node now. These two hotels offer you exceptional value for money. We have the swimming pools, we have the Spas attached to it. At Sky we have the restaurant on the 8th floor with music every night; dinner and dancing. So the attraction for children and adults is very, very good.”
