The global travel search engine’s data reveals that this makes it an easy “yes” for South African holidaymakers to take a trip closer to home, as searches for SA’s hotels jumped by about seven-fold (661%) in the last two weeks of June compared to pre-pandemic levels.

“We see hotels being hungry for accelerating the tourism and hotel occupancy recovery process after the commercial accommodation sector was one of the hardest hit by the travel restrictions and lockdowns,” says Laure Bornet, GM, Kayak EMEA, that manages Cheapflights.co.za. “In what is clearly an industry-wide effort to ease the traveller market back into taking inter-provincial holidays and business trips, we have noted significant hotel price decreases over the South African winter travel period, in which the school holidays fall.”

Durban takes the lead

According to the data, the top ten most-searched-for South African destinations, in order, were Durban, Cape Town, Pretoria, Johannesburg, Sun City, East London, Umhlanga, Pietermaritzburg, Bloemfontein and Kimberley.

Travellers are scouting for hotel deals in Durban for about 35% lower in price than three years ago, with the average hotel price landing at about R1,120 per night. “Durban has long been a favoured South African tourism destination, with its year-round warm climate making it very attractive in these winter months. With flight searches to Durban from other SA cities being about 126% up in June compared to the pre-pandemic period, the difficult flooding period that affected much of the city a few months ago doesn’t seem to have dampened travellers’ love for this warm ocean destination,” says Bornet.

Cape Town price drop

In Cape Town, the average hotel price paid by Cheapflight travellers is 43% less compared to the same period in 2019 and hovers at R1,540 per night. This makes Cape Town even more attractive as a travel destination, with its cosmopolitan culture and the full spectrum of sun, sea, business, meetings, gastronomy, and mountains all on the traveller’s doorstep.

Courtesy of Bizcommunity – read full article here.