Southern Sun reports highest hotel occupancy since 2010 World Cup

Southern Sun reports that October delivered its strongest month on record, with group-wide occupancy reaching 73.3%, along with revenue growth of 18% and a rise in Ebitdar of 27% year-on-year.

This overall occupancy rate surpassed even World Cup levels in 2010.

Delivering its half year results, the hotel group described its performance for the six months to end-September 2025 as 'resilient'.

Income growth was up 5% to R3.1 billion (2024: R3.0 billion).

This was driven primarily by strong domestic trading, where South African operations rose 8% to R3.0 billion. Performance was partially offset, however, by a 29% decline in offshore revenue to R147 million, following the temporary closure of Paradise Sun (Seychelles) for refurbishment and weaker trading in Maputo and Tanzania.

South African hotels achieved occupancy of 60.6% (2024: 59.4%) and a 6% increase in average room rates to R1 369, lifting rooms revenue to R2 billion (2024: R1.

billion).

Demand was supported by conferencing, events, and group travel in Gauteng and the Western Cape, Southern Sun says.

The Group expects the upcoming G20 and B20 conferences to boost recovery in the transient corporate and government travel segments.

Basic headline earnings per share (HEPS) increased by 2% to 24.8 cents a share.

No interim dividend was declared, in line with the previous year, in view of the seasonal weighting of profits to the second half.

Talking to Stephen Grootes, CEO Marcel von Aulock says this October boom across the board took even Southern Sun by surprise.

"We had a forecast of about 66% and then October just took off and, for us as a big group, to get to those kind of numbers you've got to be full everywhere - you can't have a weak region."

In South Africa they saw this increased occupancy all the way from the Durban beachfront through to Kimberly in the Northern Cape and Polokwane in Limpopo.

While the onset of summer does encourage travel, he says, they had to have 'everything' to reach the ccupancy they did, he says.

"We had a lot of conferences and a lot of sports events, but we also had a lot of transient business travel which I call 'people going about their work, no matter what it is, but they had a reason to travel."

The trend was seen not only countrywide but across all segments, from Southern Sun's 5-star hotels down to budget establishments.

Von Aulock believes the increased occupancy in October further indicates positive sentiment in the country.

He also draws attention to the impact of the temporary closure of island destination Paradise Sun on their half year numbers, saying it represents usually about 10% of group earnings.

After reopening mid-September, the Seychelles hotel has done well again, with 81% occupancy in October.

Scroll up to the audio player to hear from the Southern Sun CEO