在全球经济不景气的背景下，南非酒店市场取得了相对不错的成绩。根据2012年高盛集团（Goldman Sachs）的一份报告显示，2012年美国与亚洲酒店业单房平均收益（RevPAR）预计增长5%-7%；欧洲总体与上年持平，其中意大利、葡萄牙、西班牙和希腊预计下降2%-4%。与此相比，酒店咨询公司STR七月份的数据显示，南非三星级酒店单房平均收益增长9.8%，五星级酒店达到12.6%。
单房平均收益是酒店行业计算收益能力的方法，通常是入住率乘以单房平均日单价（ADR）。
普华永道（Price Waterhouse Coopers）在去年7月份的酒店业展望中预测，酒店房间收益将达到146亿兰特，与2011年相比年增长8.7%。未来五年，旅游业将推动住宿业的增长，游客总数2016年预计将达到1686万。
与此相应的是，酒店运营公司也开始加大投入。九月份，瑞泽多（Rezidor）宣布新的公园客栈（Park Inn）将于2014年第一季度在开普敦纽兰兹开始营业；同时是在九月，希尔顿酒店（Hilton Worldwide）完成签署与度假村业主的管理协议，宣布位于西开普省克里斯那的佩祖拉度假休闲中心（Pezula Resort & Spa）正式运营。十月份，普罗梯亚酒店集团（Protea Hospitality）也宣布新的比勒陀利亚冰火酒店（Protea Hotel Fire & Ice!）正在新建当中，预计也将于2014年开始运营。
现状：喜忧参半
南非是非洲的门户，也是非洲第一大经济体，因而酒店业在南非已经获得了充分的发展，其扩张的空间已经非常有限。南非世界杯之前，南非酒店业大兴土木，过度竞争，加之世界经济的不景气，酒店业一度面临入住率持续下降，萎靡不振的窘境。
虽然近期酒店业出现回暖迹象，然而平均日单价和入住率这两根“软肋”，使得人们对此次复苏的可持续性仍有怀疑。
不过长期来看，由于旅游资源丰富、基础设施发达，南非仍然是非洲大陆最受欢迎的旅游目的国之一。南非旅游业的前景依然广阔，外国游客人数只会上升不会下降，这为酒店业的发展奠定了良好的基础。
同时，非洲品牌酒店的占比不到35%，而这一数字在美国是70%。基于南非酒店多年积累的丰富运营经验，投资或重组非洲的酒店市场将是大有可为的一次市场机会。
非洲市场急剧扩张
非洲经济快速发展，商务与休闲人数也随之扩张，为了抓住非洲这一新兴的市场机会，非洲当地及全球酒店集团正在大举进军非洲大陆。
南非酒店集团普罗梯亚目前已投入1.2亿美元，正在尼日尼亚，赞比亚和乌干达新建酒店，但公司总裁亚瑟•吉利斯（Arthur Gillis）同时表示，他们的投资主要集中于“自己的后花园”——撒哈拉以南非洲地区，一般比较受南非人欢迎，同时要求航空设施比较发达。同时，上市旅游公司库利南控股（Cullinan Holdings）——旗下品牌包括汤普森假日（Thompson Holiday）和笔游（Pentravel）——受南非航空公司（SAA）指定开发并运营南非之外的SAA假日计划。
除本地企业，希尔顿酒店也将加快布局非洲；瑞泽多酒店集团去年在撒哈拉以南非洲新开了四家酒店，预计今年还会再开三家。预计到2015年底，该集团在非洲的酒店数将达到50家；城市旅馆（City Lodge）计划未来5到10年投资1.5亿兰特新建20座酒店；喜达屋（Starwood）目前在非洲拥有38家酒店，并计划未来三年再新开10家，预计到2020年酒店数将是现在的三倍。
"According to a recent report by Goldman Sachs, growth in 2012 RevPAR in America and Asia’s hotel industry is forecast at around 5%-7%. In Europe overall 2012 RevPAR is expected to be flat with a decline of 2%-4% in a number of south European countries such as Italy, Portugal, Spain and Greece," says Joop Demes, CEO of Pam Golding Hospitality, a member of the Pam Golding Property group.
RevPAR is a measure the hotel industry uses to calculate daily sales by multiplying the occupancy rate with the average daily rate for a room.
Compared with the same trading period last year, the South African results from hospitality consultants STR for July reflect overall year-to-date RevPAR growth of between 9.8% for three-star hotels and 12.6% for five-star hotels.
This supports predictions from the July PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Hospitality outlook that a turnaround in growth and revenue is on the cards for South Africa’s hospitality sector.
PwC forecasts that hotel room revenue will expand to R14.6bn, up 8.7% compounded annually from last year.
Nikki Forster, PwC leader of hospitality and gaming, says growth in travel and tourism will fuel growth in the accommodation industry in the next five years. "The total number of travellers in South Africa is expected to rise to 16.86-million by 2016.
In September Rezidor, a member of the Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group, announced it would open a Park Inn by Radisson in Newlands, Cape Town in the first quarter of 2014. It is Rezidor’s second Park Inn by Radisson hotel in Cape Town; the group also has two Radisson Blu hotels in Cape Town.
Also in September, Hilton Worldwide announced that Pezula Resort & Spa in Knysna, Western Cape, would join its luxury portfolio segment, Conrad Hotels & Resorts, following the signing of a management agreement with resort owners Alderney Establishment.
Meanwhile, Protea Hospitality in October announced that a new Protea Hotel Fire & Ice! is being built in Menlyn, Pretoria. It will open in 2014.
RECOVERY in the hospitality sector will not be sustainable over the long term, unless hotels place greater focus on growing both Average Daily Rates (ADR) and occupancy to drive revenue, Protea Hospitality group director of sales, marketing and revenue Danny Bryer said on Tuesday.
"In America, approximately 70% of all hotels are branded, while in Africa, other than South Africa, we estimate that some 35% or less are branded, and this presents an opportunity for the large and well-known South African and international operators," he says.
LOCAL and international hotel groups are making strides into the rest of the African continent, prompted by rapid African economic growth and an opportunity to accommodate the increasing number of business and leisure travellers in the region.
The industry in South Africa has been hampered by an oversupply of rooms and low occupancy rates, and with local expansion opportunities relatively limited, hotel groups are increasingly looking to undersupplied regions in the rest of Africa.
Protea Hospitality is on a $120m African expansion drive, with projects under way in Nigeria, Zambia and Uganda, and sights on "lots of other places".
Mr Gillis says the group is focusing "on our own backyard" in sub-Saharan Africa but is "unlikely to expand into a country which is not serviced by South Africa from an air point of view or (not) considered desirable by South Africans".
Meanwhile, Hilton Worldwide intends to accelerate its growth in Africa, and already has 19 properties in the pipeline to add to its 33 hotels on the continent, CEO Chris Nassetta said in September. He says there are "amazing growth opportunities in Africa — we will grow rapidly, there is exceptional opportunity to grow that base".
Andrew McLachlan, Rezidor Hotel Group’s vice-president of business development for Africa and the Indian Ocean Islands, says the group opened four new hotels in sub-Saharan Africa last year, and expects to open three more this year.
The group had originally hoped to reach 50 African hotels by the end of 2015, "and we will probably do it in the first quarter of 2013 — so we’re ahead of where we wanted to be".
City Lodge has plans to invest R1.5bn over the next five to 10 years building up to 20 hotels on the continent.
Starwood has an African portfolio of 38 hotels and plans to open 10 new hotels in the region over the next three years. It plans to almost triple its African presence to 100 hotels by 2020.
Listed tourism group Cullinan Holdings, whose brands include Thompsons Holidays and Pentravel, was appointed by South African Airways (SAA) to develop and operate the SAA Holidays Programme out of SA. Cullinan chairman and acting
CEO Michael Tollman says while the SAA Holidays Programme has been rolled out in South Africa, "most importantly, we are poised to roll it out throughout the rest of Africa".
