From 15 December 2021 to 4 January 2022, the city of Durban reported over 80% occupancy rates across its accommodation establishments.<\/p>\n
According to city officials, eThekwini\u2019s tourism industry lost hundreds of millions in revenue due to the COVID-19 pandemic however preliminary figures revealed that the 2021 Christmas weekend alone brought 200\u00a0000 visitors and approximately R350million for the city\u2019s GDP.<\/p>\n
The influx of visitors ensured that Durban\u2019s restaurants, eateries and other destinations were bursting at the seams.<\/p>\n
Wayne Smith, general manager of Cabana Beach Resort on the uMhlanga promenade, agreed that it was a busy December season with packed beaches and good take up of restaurants and facilities. \u201cOccupancy rates returned to pre-COVID levels indicating that most guests still choose to travel but do it cautiously while social distancing protocols remain in place,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
And things looked good on the restaurant front too. Duncan Heafield, KZN regional head for the Restaurant Association of South Africa and owner of Bellezar restaurant said: \u201cuMhlanga\u2019s restaurants and hospitality establishments saw a very reassuring increase in turnover and occupancy in the last ten days of the December vacation period. This was largely attributed to disaster management act regulations staying intact and the lifting of the national curfew.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe drop in COVID illness severity and hospital admissions during the fourth wave also made trading conditions more favourable as people were encouraged to venture out more,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
While things are quieter now with the beginning of the new school year, the uMhlanga UIP looks forward to welcoming visitors in a few months\u2019 time for the Easter break.<\/p>\n
Photo cred: Oliver Bate<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From 15 December 2021 to 4 January 2022, the city of Durban reported over 80% occupancy rates across its accommodation establishments. According to city officials, eThekwini\u2019s tourism industry lost hundreds of millions in revenue due to the COVID-19 pandemic however preliminary figures revealed that the 2021 Christmas weekend alone brought 200\u00a0000 visitors and approximately R350million…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":9215,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-municipal-services"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bridgecity.org.za\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bridgecity.org.za\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bridgecity.org.za\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bridgecity.org.za\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bridgecity.org.za\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9214"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/bridgecity.org.za\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9214\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9217,"href":"https:\/\/bridgecity.org.za\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9214\/revisions\/9217"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bridgecity.org.za\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bridgecity.org.za\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bridgecity.org.za\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bridgecity.org.za\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}