South Africa has assured the world it has enough accommodation for next year’s Soccer World Cup, but with the majority of available rooms situated in the Western Cape, fans may have to travel a bit further to attend matches across the country.

Tourism Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk told a media briefing at Parliament in Cape Town an extensive accommodation audit undertaken by the National Department of Tourism concluded that South Africa had more than 202 712 rooms or 405 424 beds (based on two beds per room) available across the country. He was satisfied this would be enough to accommodate the expected 450 000 fans, as they weren’t all going to be in the country at the same time. He said 40% of all establishments in South Africa (7 492) and 53% of all rooms (107 119) were graded and therefore quality assured. The audit has resulted in the first comprehensive accommodation database in South Africa. It forms the basis of a new national accommodation booking website for the Soccer World Cup, www.Rooms4U.travel, which will be administered by the Federated Hospitality Association of South Africa (Fedhasa).  All establishments on the portal will be pre-registered and must verify their information during December and January. Any establishment, regardless of size or grading, can load stock on to the system at no cost. To do so they must register on the website or contact Fedhasa. The website will be ready to take real-time bookings, confirmations and facilitate secure and guaranteed payments by February 2010. Van Schalkwyk also announced the launch of South Africa’s first National Tourism Contact Centre as a single point of call for all tourism-related information.
The contact centre consists of a website hosted by South African Tourism  – www.southafrica.net – and a call centre  +27-87-803 INFO (4636), which will operate 24/7 in seven languages (English, French, Italian, Spanish, German, Dutch and Portuguese). It will provide a wide range of accurate and up-to-date tourism information regarding attractions, activities, transport, general information, experiences, services, restaurants and routes. The Minsiter said the 202 712 rooms available in South Africa included the 48 000 contracted by FIFA accommodation provider MATCH for FIFA officials, teams, commercial affiliates, media and hospitality. MATCH executive co-chairman, Jaime Byrom, expressed “a great sense of relief”. “We feel comfortable that we have an inventory of quality available and that the 1,7m room nights held (by MATCH, all from graded establishments) will be sufficient,” he said. He said MATCH’s contracted rooms included 4 500 in neighbouring countries and 3200 in Mauritius. Results of the nationwide accommodation audit show that: * The host cities together have 7 520 establishments and 100 853 rooms within a 50km radius of stadia.
* The Western Cape has the lion’s share of 7 054 establishments (of which 2 477 are graded), 62 218 rooms and 124 436 beds; followed by KZN with 2 906 establishments (1 084 graded), 31 273 rooms and 62 546 beds; Gauteng with 2 791 establishments (1 158 graded), 44 126 rooms and 88 252 beds; the Eastern Cape with 2 105 establishments (962 graded), 19 230 rooms and 38 460 beds and Mpumalanga with 1 088 establishments (485 graded), 12 805 rooms and 25 610 beds. The Free State, Limpopo, North West and the Northern Cape all have fewer than 1 000 accommodation establishments.
* Cape Town holds 36% of all accommodation establishments, followed by Johannesburg 21%; Durban 14%; Pretoria 13%; Port Elizabeth 6%; Mbombela (Nelspruit) 4%; Mangaung (Bloemfontein) 3%; Polokwane (Pietersburg) and Rustenburg 2% each.