THE Protea Hotel Group, which is building 10 new hotels, is confident it will be able to fill all its rooms after the Fifa World Cup 2010 has been and gone, says Danny Bryer, marketing & revenue director.

“We’re not just building for 2010. Johannesburg has an undersupply of hotel rooms at present. In Cape Town, there is a need for more five-star hotels. Satellite cities all around South Africa are growing exponentially and we are confident that our hotels will be filled post 2010,” he says. Current Protea developments include the five-star deluxe Crystal Towers opening next month at Century City, Cape Town; 15 On Orange opening September 2009 in Cape Town; Willow Lake in Bloemfontein opening next month; and Umhlanga Protea on the KZN North Coast. Danny says Protea is also looking at opportunities in Central Johannesburg, Rosebank and Sandton. The three-star extreme adventure-style Protea Hotel Fire and Ice in Cape Town is being extended and the company is looking at further rolling out the concept elsewhere in South Africa. In Africa, Protea already has 32 hotels in nine countries, including 12 hotels in Nigeria with four more being developed there. Tribe opened recently in Kenya under the African Pride brand. Further opportunities are being explored in Angola, Uganda, Zambia and Tanzania. Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe has been earmarked for development when the politics in that country normalise. Bryer says the 2010 World Cup is not just about the six week event, but also about the infrastructure that is being built for afterwards. “The World Cup will leave us with a better infrastructure in places like Bloemfontein, Port Elizabeth and Polokwane.” He predicts 2010 will be a catalyst for huge international interest in leisure tourism and investment, but he warns “those just looking to exploit the World Cup for six weeks will come short”. Bryer says the World Cup will create new emerging markets from Asia and the Middle East, and this will result in tourism growth in 2011. He also predicts increased interest in 2011 from the Americas, particularly Argentina, Brazil and the USA. Domestically, the event will awaken a huge emerging market.  The biggest growth segments will be luxury travel, adventure travel, the “Baby-boomers” and individual travellers. Even though there has been a 10 percentage point drop in the past two months in group travel because of the world economic crisis, recent research by Thomas Cook showed that people were still intending to holiday, but were taking less frequent but longer, quality breaks.