Hotels continue to be the most popular holiday accommodation type, although guest houses and guest farms are catching up with income from the overall sector having exceeded the figure captured just before COVID-19.
Image: File
Hotels continue to be the most popular holiday accommodation type, although guest houses and guest farms are catching up with income from the overall sector having exceeded the figure captured just before Covid-19.
This is according to Statistics South Africa’s latest print on tourist accommodation, which covers February this year. This data indicates that income from lodgings, on a seasonally adjusted basis, is now at the highest level it has been at since at least January 2020.
Between December last year and February 2025, the tourist accommodation sector accounted for R9 billion, with R2.8bn of that amount having been earned in February.
Year-on-year, income from accommodation increased by 12.2% in February. This was the result of a 2.4% increase in the number of stay unit nights sold and a 9.5% increase in the average income per stay unit night sold.
Over a three-month period (last December to this February) the gain in income was 13.8%.
The tourism industry was expected to contribute 8.8% of South Africa’s total gross domestic product last year, contributing more to economic growth than transport, mining, and agriculture.
Last August, Minister of Tourism, Patricia De Lille, said that South Africa’s tourism sector employed 1.46 million people in 2023, a figure that is projected to grow to 2.23 million jobs in 2030.
Between December last year and February 2025, the tourist accommodation sector accounted for R9 billion, with R2.8bn of that amount having been earned in February.
Image: Stats SA
Guest houses and guest farms started growing in terms of being attractive as a home for vacationers from last September, when this sub sector declined 6.9%, before starting to grow from the following month through to a gain of 15.2% in the value of accommodation as of February, Statistics South Africa’s latest figures show.
These venues, however, only accounted for R390m in income between last December and this February – although they did contribute more than camping. Guest houses are not AirBnBs and the like, but rather offer three meals a day and communal facilities like dining rooms, lounges, and bars – unlike B&Bs.
Interestingly, caravan parks and camping sites have been declining in popularity since last November, showing a drop of 5.9% in December followed by a huge slump in 16.9% even as these months are key to tourism, being peak times. This type of location accounted for less than guest lodging, at R231.8m over the same period.
In a recent speech, the Minister said: “Last year, nearly 9 million international visitors arrived in South Africa – 76% from fellow African nations.”
De Lille added that “tourism is our most powerful tool to bridge divides, spark enterprise, and rewrite the story of economic participation”.
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