Hotel operator Southern Sun has reported a surge in business tourism at its Maputo facilities which it links to “shipping business redirected from Durban’s port”.
According to BusinessLIVE, Southern Sun said in its annual report this week that its Durban establishment was experiencing difficult trading conditions for various reasons, but mainly the city’s bad reputation and the harbour crisis, with port delays causing diversion of shipping business to the Mozambican capital.
In a joint letter to investors, Southern Sun’s CEO Marcel von Aulock and chair John Copelyn said: “Despite development delays in the oil and gas sectors in Mozambique, Southern Sun and StayEasy, Maputo achieved ebitdar (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, amortisation and restructuring) growth of 37%, benefiting from shipping business redirected from Durban’s port.”
They also noted that “Durban has struggled to attract tourism as the negative PR about issues such as polluted sea waters and the after-effect of the July 2021 riots affect public perception of the city”.
BusinessLIVE reports that Durban is a pivotal hub for the Southern African region, serving as a trade link to the Far East, Middle East, Australasia, South America, North America and Europe. The crown jewel in Transnet’s port portfolio, Durban Container Terminal Pier 2, handles 72% of Durban port traffic and 46% of SA’s import and export traffic.
But with poor Transnet service, characterised by incessant bottlenecks and backlogs at SA’s main port of Durban, the port of Maputo has expanded quickly in recent years to meet the demands of both South Africa’s and Mozambique’s expanding economy.
[Image: Hansueli Krapf, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11922198]