Crumbling roads blamed for 'disappointing' tourism season

THE tourism industry association, Federated Hospitality Association of South Africa (Fedhasa), has blamed challenges linked to the country’s infrastructure as being one of the reasons for a disappointing performance during the festive season. 

While Fedhasa will release full statistics for the sector’s festive season performance in mid-February 2026, its national chairperson, Brett Tungay, said their anecdotal statistics for the festive season became very much of a mixed bag across the country.

Despite the disappointment, areas like Mossel Bay and the Waterfront in Cape Town did very well, he said. 

“The high-end tourism destinations continued to do well, while the mid-level and low-levels saw a drop. The prime spots occupancy rate sat between 80 and 85%, but then, as soon as you went out of the prime tourism spots, most people reported 70 to 75%. That was the general trend for this festive season,” Tungay said.

Even those destinations that appear to have done well reported results similar to the previous festive season.

South Africa saw a slow start for the first two weeks of the season, and that resulted in a short season.

“There has not been much growth. Only the KwaZulu-Natal South Coast had a brilliant comeback, reporting about a 25% increase in most tourism areas during the festive season,” he said.

Fedhasa believes these factors signal that the SA consumer is definitely under economic strain.

“KZN, Free State, North West, Northern Cape, have a huge drop off in the foreign tourism numbers, and that to a large extent is the self-drive and camp-a-home market. Again, we need good roads because what we find is that the travel agents aren’t booking areas that have marginal road access, which is understandable. After all, no one wants to be hit by potholes and get punctured,” Tungay said. 

“We would like to see the provinces, especially KwaZulu-Natal (Drakensberg), Free State, Mpumalanga, Northern Cape, and North West, concentrating on the rehabilitation of access roads. If tourism does well, that means the infrastructure for all the other sectors of the economy is going to benefit everybody else. We need good roads, not just for tourism, but for agriculture, manufacturing, etc.,” he stated. 

Transport spokesperson Collen Msibi, said the Department, on an annual basis, supports the provinces to maintain roads through a Provincial Road Maintenance Grant (PRMG), which is an allocation of over R10 billion per annum. 

“However, this allocation is not fully utilised, which is a concern for the department, yet we have roads that are desperately in need of maintenance at the provincial level. It is a matter that features prominently in our forum between the national department and provinces,” Msibi said. 

He added that the national roads, which fall under the Department’s agency, SANRAL, are in good condition. 

The department continues to work closely with its sister Department of Tourism, more so on issues relating to the application of operating permits and licences by tour operators, Msibi stated.

Cape Times