HOSPITALITY SECTOR MUST BE AGILE TO SURVIVE THE ROUGH
By John Cockayne
Pic : The pool deck and ‘ chill area ’ of the Sandton Sun .
THE SHIFT IN TRAVEL PATTERNS DUE TO COVID-19 DEMANDS FRESH IDEAS . I am on an itinerary that takes me through the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands and the Drakensberg and then on down to Durban by car . The prompt for the trip is to bring “ life ” into the concept that local is lekker from a destination , venues , packaging , price point and routing perspective . In this feature I explore the need for product and marketing flexibility with Robert Jasper , the GM of the Sandton Sun Hotel .
JC : I know the international travel market is important both to the hotel units you manage and the Tsogo Sun group as a whole , but given the uncertainty over international travel and the spike in the number of Covid-19 cases in the UK and Europe , what is your thinking in terms of hospitality products and their marketing ? RJ : It is going to be very important for the whole hotel / hospitality sector to be responsive and agile . You asked the question whether I saw the hotel units I manage as being business travel-focused , and my answer in 2019 would have been yes . However , since the reopening following the lockdown , occupancies for business travel , not only in terms of bed nights taken by airline companies but for the individual business traveller , have dropped off significantly while leisure bookings have increased dramatically . We shall need to see if this is to be the new direction for these units or just a Covid-induced blip and then respond accordingly .
JC : I read a report recently that 900 people in Mongolia had died of bubonic plague , the scourge of the Middle Ages and estimated to have caused 250-million deaths . These types of
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