By Sue Blaine

South African National Parks (SANParks) is hoping the R125m that will be spent on two lodge-style hotels for Kruger National Park will attract more of the growing black middle class, CEO David Mabunda said yesterday.

The annual spending power of SA’s 3- million or so black middle-class citizens (up from 2-million in 2005) was estimated at R237bn last year, down from an estimated high of R250bn in 2008, Paul Egan, head of the University of Cape Town’s Unilever Institute of Strategic Marketing, said.

The black middle class had a combined spending power of 34% of all consumers, SA’s 34-million adults, Mr Egan said yesterday.

Attracting more middle-class blacks was one of SANParks’ three focus areas for the park, Mr Mabunda said at a news conference in Pretoria.

The others were continuing to serve the park’s traditionally largely white domestic market, which was more attracted to self- catering accommodation and the international market, said Mr Mabunda. About 20% of the park’s visitors are black.

Market research showed the majority of SA’s black middle class wanted full- service resort-type accommodation, said SANParks’ tourism and marketing managing executive, Glenn Phillips.

SANParks had no intention of harming its "impeccable" record of upholding the highest environmental ethics by planing for the Kruger National park the type of hotel that would harm its ecology or ambience, said Mr Mabunda.

One of the hotels will be erected at the park’s main rest camp, Skukuza, and will complement the new conference centre there.

The other will be near its Malelane Gate in the south of the 2-million hectare park that is one of SA’s most well-known tourism icons.

The Malelane hotel will have 120 rooms. It will be operated by international hotel group Rezidor which has several Radisson Blu and Park Inn hotels around the country.

It was expected that the hotels would open in 2013, but this was dependent on the duration of the environmental impact assessment process.

The tender to build and operate the development went to a consortium that was predominantly South African and included a 20% holding by a community trust on a 30-year concession, with 6% of turnover going to SANParks.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature guideline for infrastructure development in a reserve was 10% of the total area, and the park had so far developed 6285ha (0,3%) including roads and staff accommodation.

SANParks had no intention to develop the park even to the 10% threshold.

"We really don’t want to do that. It’s not about chasing the dollar, it’s about servicing the demand," he said.

SANParks had spent R1,9bn for park infrastructure over the past five years, but had not yet catered for visitors who wanted hotel-style accommodation.

The park had an occupancy rate which, although seasonal, ran at an average of 79,4% in 2009-10.

This was much higher than the national average of 50% to 60%. The development was also expected to increase SANParks’ total employment to 11000 from 10300.

Source: Business Day