This year’s World Cup will “dampen” South Africans’ domestic travel plans.
This is according to research conducted by Grant Thornton recently, which indicates that there will be a displacement of domestic leisure and business travel during the period.
Host cities like Cape Town and Durban will “swop” domestic holiday business for the World Cup demand. But the regular domestic holiday business linked to school holidays will be permanently displaced, as families have no other time to travel.
According to Gillian Saunders, Director of Grant Thornton Strategic Solutions:
“All school holidays have been scheduled to coincide with the World Cup, so many families are likely to stay home.”
She says this means that traditional holiday destinations, which won’t necessarily benefit directly from accommodating World Cup visitors, may have a slower season than usual. “They will need to do some strong marketing to ensure people know they are open for business as usual.”
Grant Thornton believes there is anecdotal evidence that South Africans who aren’t staying home, will be travelling farther afield to destinations such as Namibia, Mauritius and the Seychelles.
“Local business travel will almost cease, unless absolutely necessary. This will actually be a welcome development as we need the hotel room capacity and rental car pool for tourist use in the key centres,” said Saunders.
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