By Suren Naidoo
It may not be the traditional Easter holiday bonanza in South Africa, but hoteliers, airlines and other tourism establishments are seeing a surge in bookings for the long weekend.
A quick search on the websites of the main domestic airlines show several flights sold out on the popular Joburg-Cape Town and Joburg-Durban routes, while prices on peak days have spiked on higher demand.
If you book a last-minute flight out of Joburg for today (Thursday) or Friday and return on Monday, you could be forking out more than R4 000 and R6 000, respectively, on the routes to Durban and Cape Town.
These are peak flying days with Friday and Monday being public holidays, so prices have peaked. But, for some context, return flight prices on these routes in February and March were going for as little as R800 and R1 500.
While you still can get flight specials on these routes this Saturday and Sunday at half that of the peak prices, the surge in prices highlights that demand is up for the long weekend.
Domestic tourism demand is also higher at accommodation establishments, including hotels, game lodges, family resorts and time-share hospitality properties, according to major hotel operators speaking to Moneyweb.
In fact, several well-known hotels and resorts are either fully booked or reaching capacity, such as Sun City in the North West, the Beverly Hills Hotel in Umhlanga Rocks, Arabella Hotel & Spa near Hermanus, Grand Hotel at Cape Town’s GrandWest Casino complex, Mount Grace in Magaliesburg, Kruger Park Lodge and the Drakensberg Sun resort.
While demand for local flights and accommodation is not at the levels of this time in 2019, the spike in bookings represents a much-needed boost for embattled airlines and the tourism industry.
FlySafair’s head of sales Kirby Gordon tells Moneyweb the airline has seen a surge in bookings for Easter and has put on extra local flights to some destinations, however, this is based on peak season demand as opposed to increased bookings following President Ramaphosa’s address on Tuesday.
"Pricing is very much set by supply and demand… Now you would see very high prices for the Easter weekend, given that it’s a day out, which is why we advise customers to book in advance for the best prices," he says.
Comair, which operates kulula.com and British Airways domestic flights in South Africa, did not give specifics on bookings when questioned by Moneyweb.
However, the group’s revenue executive Desmond O’Connor noted in an emailed response that pent-up demand and “some incredible deals” have seen an escalation in bookings.
He says pent up demand for local travel is a result of "improving sentiment that it’s now safe to travel domestically."
His sentiments are echoed on the hotel industry front by Graham Wood, COO of hospitality at JSE-listed Sun International.
"Easter is a shorter holiday period compared to December, but it is expected to be busier. In fact, this is the busiest we have been since the initial hard lockdown in March last year," he says.
Marcel von Aulock, CEO of JSE-listed Tsogo Sun Hotels, expects hotel occupancies in Cape Town to increase to around 40% overall for Easter.
While this is still low, it is much better than the occupancy rates in February and March, which languished around the 20% mark.
