Enough beds for 2010 visitors

Van Schalkwyk was briefing the media on his department's plans to launch a contact centre and booking website and detailed the country's readiness for 2010 on Tuesday, 8 December 2009, after the department carried out an audit of all available accommodation.

The audit revealed that the country had more than 202 000 rooms with over 405 000 beds available.

Van Schalkwyk said he was "satisfied", adding that it was enough for the 450 000 visitors expected to arrive in South Africa for the World Cup.

The audit also showed that the country had 18 882 accommodation establishments, of which 7 492 were graded and 11 390 ungraded.

Of the 202 712 rooms in the country, about half or 100 853 (7 520 establishments) were situated within a 50km radius of stadiums at host cities, while 107 119 of the total rooms had been graded.

The Western Cape had the highest number of establishments at 7 054, with 62 218 rooms, while KwaZulu-Natal had the second highest number of establishments with 2 906 (62 546 rooms), followed closely by Gauteng with 2 791 providers and 88 252 rooms.

The other provinces with over a thousand providers are the Eastern Cape with 2 105 establishments and Mpumalanga with 1 088.

Of the nine host cities, Cape Town had the highest number of accommodation establishments within a 50km radius of its stadium, with 2 690 providers - which represents 36 percent of all accommodation in host cities.

The Mother City is followed by Johannesburg with 1 545 providers, Durban with 1 067 and Pretoria with 940.

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