A new survey of South Africa’s accommodation business sector shows how various hotels, lodges and B&Bs are struggling under the continued coronavirus lockdown, which has kept the travel and tourism industry shut down for almost three months.
The survey, conducted by accommodation booking portal LekkeSlaap.co.za, polled 7,262 businesses across all provinces in South Africa, on all aspects relating to their operations and the Covid-19 outbreak and government reponse.
This includes how the outbreak and lockdown has impacted their businesses, payment of salaries, retention of staff, as well as their views on the prospects of the industry going forward.
Overall, LekkeSlaap found that while the vast majority of businesses were negatively impacted by the outbreak and lockdown, they were largely able to keep staff on book – with reduced pay – and they remain hopeful that the industry will be able to be salvaged by the end of the year.
Despite the optimism, the Covid-19 pandemic has profoundly impacted the South African travel accommodation industry, leaving uncertainty, financial difficulty and, in many cases, economic devastation in its wake, LekkeSlaap said.
“Results show that a 56.5% majority of businesses have been largely impacted and that the next few months will be a struggle. 27.6% indicated a high likelihood that their business will not survive – of which 3.9% said that their business definitely would not survive the pandemic,” it said.
Limpopo (37.5%), North West (37.8%), Mpumalanga (33.5%) and the Northern Cape (34.2%) reported a particularly high chance of business failure.
“With Limpopo and Mpumalanga widely regarded to be the provinces with the most locally and internationally sought-after game viewing opportunities, these potential business failures could have a dramatic long-term impact on South Africa’s tourism economy, with noteworthy short-term economic difficulty already being be visible in these results,” the group said.
Comparatively 82.6% of respondents reported that their businesses were stable before Covid-19, of which 49.8% indicated steady revenues compared to the previous year and 32.8% indicated that their businesses were thriving.
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