ArabellaStarwood Hotels & Resorts South Africa is looking forward to a bumper summer season at its two properties in the Western Cape.
  The group is finalising its third quarter results but is expecting an upswing attributable to increased business from groups, events and conferences at both hotels, the flagship Westin Cape Town and the Arabella Western Cape Hotel & Spa near Hermanus.   Director of Sales & Marketing, Philma Gomes, says business at the Westin Cape Town picked up considerably in September and the hotel is looking forward to strong fourth quarter results. In October the hotel was 103% full for four days in a row. "We expect to outperform budget. We already have confirmed business on the books for the last quarter of the year as a result of advance planning," she says.
 
Gomes expects to start seeing results from South Africa's raised World Cup profile by the second quarter of 2011 but says the full impact will only be visible in five years because of the timeline of contract negotiations with tour operators and corporates.  
  She says ArabellaStarwood's marketing and sales strategy is mindful of the competition from new five-star entrants in Cape Town's overtraded luxury hotel sector. "We anticipate an impact so we're looking at retaining our loyalty customers and at targeting new and emerging markets."
  Improved forecasts follow a "challenging" July and August as corporate clients exhausted their annual hospitality budgets during the World Cup and minimised their spending after the event. Gomes says targeted discounting helped drive ad hoc business and allowed the travel trade to sell Starwood's discretional rates. She says discounting did not negatively affect the group's brand positioning because it was sporadic and instead drove loyalty from a new market that couldn't normally afford to stay in a five-star hotel.
  She says a US Embassy ban of the Westin Cape Town in August because of alleged theft had no lasting impact as the issue was resolved within 24 hours. She says the trade supported the hotel throughout the incident.
  At the Westin Cape Town, 74% of overall corporate business for the year to date was generated through the GDS, compared with 69% in 2009, however online business has also grown by 73% year-on-year.
  Gomes says Starwood is strategically targeting Southern Africa as a growth area and plans to bring some of its other brands into the market - such as the four-star Four Points - but cannot comment on the time plan at this stage. Starwood brands include St Regis, The Luxury Collection, W, Westin, Le Méridien, Sheraton, Four Points by Sheraton, Aloft and Element.