Cape Town guesthouses still have rooms for football fans

A snap survey of Cape Town's guesthouses have found that many still have rooms available, with football fans seemingly staying over only on match days.

Many of the guesthouse owners interviewed said they had chosen not to sign up with Match, Fifa's official accommodation partner, because their terms and conditions were "too restrictive".

Their reluctance seemed to have been justified after Match decided to shed more than 450 000 of the beds it had initially reserved this year.

Rod Shaw who owns and runs the Cape Colonial guesthouse said his establishment was "more or less" fully booked for Cape Town match days with guests from Uruguay, Germany, the UK, the US and Mauritius.

"It was a wise decision not to go with either Match or rooms4u," said Shaw referring to the travel portal touted by Federated Hospitality Association of SA (Fedhasa) Ceo Brett Dungan.

He said throughout the duration of the Fifa World Cup, his guesthouse was "95 percent full". This comes as an estate agent in Joburg reported that only 40 percent of available rental property were let out over the duration of the tournament and only because of a realistic pricing strategy.

TPN, a property credit bureau, reported on Tuesday that home owners lost between R30 000 and R50 000 on average for renovations they made to their homes, expecting well-heeled foreigners to rent their homes.

Mechthild Fluethmann, who owns the Sweet Lemon Bed and Breakfast, said she had also chosen not to work through Match and despite this had a 80 percent occupancy rate during the tournament.

"Their contract to smaller establishments like ours didn't suit us, their terms were too restrictive. We can't complain with the guests who have decided to stay with us; they are coming purely for the football," said Fluethmann.

Yolandi Campbell of the Villa Sunshine guesthouse said uptake of rooms had been "okay around the games" but they were quiet on days where the city did not host any games.

Christine von Ulmenstein, who owns the Whale Cottage guesthouse in Camps Bay, said occupancy over the World Cup was 60 percent adding that booking had moved up 10 percent, "no thanks to Match".

She also owns guesthouses in Franschhoek, Hermanus and Plettenberg Bay and says those towns would barely see any football fans.

"They're barely booking any rooms there, the fans are here for the football, they'll move from venue to venue and not stay longer to tour surrounding areas," said Von Ulmenstein.

Ursula Neidhart, who runs the Table Mountain Lodge, said it was fully booked over match days having decided to charge high season rates whereas other guesthouses had decided to "pile on the bucks" in expectation of cash flush foreigners.

"In Cape Town, only 23 percent of the expected visitors arrived. The city had no teams based here along with the least number of games played at the Cape Town Stadium as opposed to Gauteng," said Neidhart.

Dungan said its rooms portal, rooms4u, had confirmed 3 000 bookings since its launch in April.

The biggest issue that guesthouses have to deal with is that they don't have confirmation of payment for bookings.

"If the payment doesn't materialise they lose a client," said Dungan.

Cape Times

Posted at 09:02AM Jun 10, 2010 by Editor in Residential  |