Cape Town’s V&A Waterfront, one of South Africa’s most visited and recognised tourist destinations, plans to develop a new mid-market internationally branded hotel in adding to the popular Cape Town-based tourist attraction’s portfolio and leveraging the City’s expected tourism growth. The Waterfront’s management is yet to confirm a potential operator, project site, timelines and development costs.
V&A Waterfront CEO David Green indicated that the new hotel, to be developed among the 123 ha waterfront’s 6 five-star, 2 four-star and 2 three-star hotels, would benefit from Cape Town’s expected tourism growth of between 4 percent and 5 percent in 2014.
Green said that an independent report commissioned by the V&A Waterfront showed that the revenue per available room or RevPar, of the hotels based at the Waterfront was higher than for those of the surrounding areas, with premiums of up to 52 percent for five-star, 71 percent for four-star and 95 percent for three-star hotels.
PwC snapshot report highlighted sustained growth in the South African hotel sector’s performance from January to June 2013, with RevPar increasing 13.1 percent on a national aggregated basis.
Three- and four-star hotels reported growth of 12.4 percent while five-star hotels delivered growth of 15.6 percent. Cape Town, which welcomed 24 million visitors a year and boasted 24 five-star, 54 four-star and 20 three-star hotels, registered growth of 16.2 percent.
V&A Waterfront currently recycles around 40 percent of its waste, or 120 t a month, which translates into savings of over US$ 82,292 (R876, 000) a year. Further, the company has recycled more than 4,000 t of waste since it started recycling in October 2009.
According to the Heritage Environmental Management Company, the waterfront is the first of its kind in Africa to be independently audited and certified for its environmental compliance. The Waterfront, which attracts more than 23 million visitors a year, was awarded Heritage Silver classification in 2012.
