A Report On Hotel Investment Conference Africa - 931 Words

PRESS RELEASE AFRICA IS STILL THE ‘GO TO’ PLACE FOR HOTEL INVESTORS – UNPACKING THE OUTCOMES OF HOTEL INVESTEMENT CONFERENCE AFRICA 2014 South Africa, Pretoria, 29 September 2014: â€Å"Africa remains the ‘go to’ place in the world, in as far as hotel investment and growth is concerned - and it will be for some time to come† says one of South Africa’s leading economists and Chief Economist for Investment Solutions, Chris Hart. Addressing delegates at the recent Hotel Investment Conference Africa (HICA), which was held in Johannesburg, South Africa, from 14th to 16th September, Hart touched on the contentious issue of South Africa’s new immigration regulations and said it was critical for Governments to remove obstacles which serve as†¦show more content†¦Another session, titled the World and Sub Saharan Africa in 2014, provided a detailed review of the SSA region’s hotel performance in comparison to other parts of the world. Notable highlights from the two sessions †¢ West Africa leads the hotel development pipeline with about 87 hotels planned. A total of 51% of these hotels are in preplanning, whilst 49% are in construction. 40 of the hotels planned in this region will be in Nigeria; East Africa comes a close second with 33 hotels planned and Tanzania leading hotel development pipeline and in Southern Africa, South Africa has a total of 9 hotels in the pipeline;. †¢ African cities which have been performing well in terms of occupancies and increasing average daily rates (AVR) include Accra, Abuja. Addis Ababa, Cape Town and Windhoek; †¢ Resources and ICT sectors are fuelling hospitality investment drive in the Continent; †¢ From a funding and capital sourcing perspective, a more knowledgeable, more experienced hotel owner class was beginning to emerge, which will have a greater influence on the future growth and sustainability of the sector Africa must tell its own story Despite the UNWTO’s projections that international arrivals into Africa would reach 134 billion by 2020, the conference acknowledged that Africa still had the