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SUN INTERNATIONAL ANNUAL REPORT ’10
Hotels and resorts units
38
Occupancies and rates 2010 2009
Total room nights available (000's) 1 102 1 077
Total room nights sold (000's) 735 788
Local 554 568
International 181 220
Total occupancies achieved (%) 67 73
Local 50 53
International 17 20
As a result of the adverse international economy, there was a 18% decline
in our international room nights sold – excluding the World Cup room
nights. The worst affected international segment was our MICE (Meetings,
Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions) sector which declined by 43%
to 29 000 room nights. Our international FIT (individual) segment was
least affected, decreasing by 10% to 90 000 room nights. Overall, the
international segment dropped from 28% to 25% of our total sold room
nights with a resultant room revenue decline from 44% to 39%.
In spite of this decline in the international segment, together with rate
sensitivity in the local market, the average room rate for the hotels and
resorts units increased marginally to R1 014. This marginal growth was
largely as a result of healthy room rates at Sun City and The Table Bay
over the World Cup period. The group remained true to its policy of
maintaining rate integrity and this reflected positively on the overall
rate growth.
There was a significant decline in occupancies at the Palace of the Lost
City – from 70% to 59% – as a result of the drop in international trade.
This is the first time in a decade that the Palace’s occupancy rate dropped
below the 70% mark. The Nedbank Golf Tournament was once again
a huge success, with overall attendance – including hotel guests –
increasing by 7% to 65 000 people.
Miss South Africa pageant
There were similar conditions at The Table Bay, where occupancies declined
from 67% to 53%. The situation was compounded by an increase in
competitor activity in Cape Town. In spite of this, our properties by and large
did not participate in aggressive discounting which has long term negative
impacts on overall average achieved rates.
International travel trends
Inbound tourism remains under pressure although there was some
positive growth from the secondary markets such as India, South America
and Africa holding ground. There was negative growth in our primary
markets, notably the UK and USA. We have maintained a strong sales and
marketing focus in these markets to ensure we remain top of mind with
our customers.
Our website, www.suninternational.com, enabled us to present more
of our properties and facilities to the world. The new home page has
direct links to Sun City, our best-known property internationally and the
one most searched for on Google. Following an analysis of the page’s
performance we identified additional opportunities to improve our main
navigation and content of the site.
Our eMarketing activity resulted in a number of innovations in the digital
space, such as the introduction of blogs, a Facebook page for our
Springbreak promotion, the launch of our YouTube and flickr channels
and the introduction of Twitter. Collectively these channels were engaged
by some 187 500 people.
Public relations
Overall, our public relations activities continue to be some of the most
effective in the hospitality industry, generating approximately R480 million
worth of coverage during the year under review.
As a result of the World Cup, Sun City in particular, stood out. The number
of celebrities, taken together with the Ghanaian team who stayed at Sun
City during the World Cup, along with the English team who played golf
at both courses at the resort, ensured we had maximum global media
coverage. During the World Cup period, we hosted 141 electronic and
print media guests.
We again hosted the Miss South Africa competition and were particularly
pleased that President Jacob Zuma joined forces with the current Miss SA,
Nicole Flint, on the 1Goal education crusade. This is a campaign which,
following on from the World Cup, uses the power of football to make
education a reality for 72 million children by 2015 by bringing together
world leaders, footballers, fans and charities.