Tills ring despite season’s challenges

The triple threat of water, electricity and traffic disruptions didn’t drive Santa away completely, but a late start to the Festive Season put a slight damper on holiday spirits.

Nevertheless, the majority of role players had positive reports about the holiday season spend on the Dolphin Coast.

Traditionally a tourist town, Ballito and the entire Dolphin Coast still relies heavily on the tourist spend to fill pantries from one holiday to the next.

Enterprise Ilembe marketing and communications manager Cheryl Peters reported that from Ballito to Zinkwazi accommodation was fully booked between December 16 until January 3 (more than 7 000 beds) and that accommodation in the Mandeni area was similarly booked during the iBeach Experience from December 27 to 29.

Ilembe Chamber CEO Cobus Oelofse said that while they did not yet have access to any formal figures, all of their affected members indicated an improvement in trading compared to last year.

“Whether this growth will prove to be sustainable was however a concern raised by businesses,” said Oelofse.

Traffic impact

He said their feedback suggested that none of the culprits identified, i.e. water, electricity and traffic, impacted business as much as it was feared they would.

“Some of our retail and shopping centre members in Ballito indicated a significant impact as a result of the traffic disruptions during the early part of December but indicated that they were able to recover through good trading during the second half of the month.

“Many of our members from Salt Rock actually benefited from the roadworks early December because a sizable amount of traffic chose to shop and eat there rather than face the traffic.”

Tiffany’s Centre manager Nicky Vorster confirmed this.

“However once the traffic issues were resolved we still continued to be very busy. Our tenants feedback regarding the December trade has been very positive, they have indicated a steady and good increase from the previous years,” she said.

However, on the negative side, Oelofse said the majority of tourism members along the beachfront areas raised concerns about the levels of anti-social behaviour.

“Filth and dirt on the beaches, drinking and urinating in public, braaiing in non-demarcated braai areas and a general disregard for by-laws were some of the issues raised.

The feeling was expressed that this type of behaviour was not controlled effectively and there was a lack of consistent and ongoing policing,” said Oelofse.

Ballito Lifestyle Centre marketing manager Tessa Woodley said that while the traffic congestion, threat of load shedding and a water crisis resulted in a slow start to the holiday season, the second half of December trade was very positive.

“The busiest trading day of the season was on December 23 with a total of 12 343 vehicles entering the centre. This showed a 5% growth on the previous year’s stats,” said Woodley.

Pick n Pay owner Michael Lafferty said this was the season where perception became reality.

“Negative publicity in Gauteng over our water shortages resulted in a percentage of holiday makers choosing to holiday on the South Coast instead of here. However our turnover paralleled that of last year this time,” he said.

Lafferty said this was the first year in 14 years where the season lasted longer but the arrival of the holiday makers was staggered, rather than arriving en masse as usual.

Similarly Mozambik restaurant owner Brett Michielin said while the season usually begins on December 16, this season the influx of holiday makers only hit on about the 26th of the month.

“Still we saw a three percent profit increase on last year,” he said.

Similarly, Mark van Staden of The Galley Beach Bar and Grill reported a fantastic season, up 30% over last December.