By Ray Mahlaka | From Moneyweb

After the four-year long decline of SA’s hotel industry, it seems its fortunes are now looking up.

There is renewed activity in the sector with moderate growth in occupancy rates and hotel room revenues.

The remnants of the 2008 global financial crisis and the subsequent end of the 2010 Fifa World Cup left the industry with a massive hangover in subsequent years.

As a result, occupancy rates bottomed from 52% in 2008 to 47.4% in 2011, figures from PwC’s hospitality outlook (2015-2019) show.  Occupancy rates have since moderately recovered, rising to 54.4% in 2014 – the highest level over the past seven years. Total room revenue has followed suit, rising by 53% from R12.3 billion in 2008 to R18.9 billion in 2014.

PwC’s Southern Africa hospitality industry leader Nikki Forster says the hotel market in South Africa enjoyed its third consecutive year of growth.

The outlook for room revenue is fairly positive, as Forster puts it: “We expect total room revenue in South Africa to expand at an 8% compound annual rate overall.”

Despite the weakening of South Africa’s economy, the hotel industry continues to benefit from an increase in foreign visitors and rising hotel room rates. The average room rates for 2014 are pegged at R820 for 2014 compared with R610 in 2008.

In recent years, the market has also seen a massive oversupply of hotel rooms, which market watchers say is slowly being taken up. This is despite more hotels coming on stream which have pushed the availability of rooms up to 115 900.

Read more at Moneyweb