For quite a few months now we have suspected that the coming season will be one for the record books. The winter months had been relentlessly busy with average occupancies ranging between 70%-75% but, until recently, the jury was still out on how nightly rates would recover going into season. With October behind us we can confirm that October rates were 12% higher than the pre-Covid rates. Moreover, occupancy is a full 9 percentage points higher than October 2019.

Unsurprisingly, the main trend driving this recovery is the pent up demand for travel following two years of Covid related travel restrictions. But Covid also accelerated digitisation which has made companies more relaxed about remote work, sparking the rise of digital nomads and remote workers. The City of Cape Town and Airbnb have partnered up on promoting Cape Town as one of the top global remote work destinations and this has certainly contributed to the recovery. Our average length of stay has increased post-Covid which confirms this trend. 

Additional factors that are contributing to the recovery: 

• Semigration to the coastal areas of SA from economic hubs like Gautemg.
• A weaker currency makes SA a more attractive long haul destination. 
• The supply of short-term rentals contracted during Covid as more properties switched to long-term rentals. We expect most of these to come back as their long-term leases end. 

Forward bookings for December and beyond are at a level higher than we have ever seen in our 8 year history. The last minute nature of bookings makes it difficult to predict the exact performance for December but we expect