Data analytics firm in the hotel industry, TRevPAR, says the hospitality industry has lost hundreds of millions of rands in revenue due to the coronavirus pandemic.

South Africa is currently among the top five countries with the most coronavirus cases worldwide, having now recorded over 360 000 cases.

The founder of TRevPAR, Derek Martin, says the sector has seen a huge drop in revenue since the beginning of the year.

“As being a data company, we’ve been looking at big data for the last five years into South Africa. A lot of people have mentioned that January and February were the highest room revenues in SA in the last five years. Looking at just those numbers in the example, SA over across a thousand hotels in February – a R2.1-billion revenue in room turnover. That’s got nothing to do with conferencing, food, drinks, events, just room revenue, R2.1-billion in one month. When I look back and I look into June and July, we looking at less than R250-million.

In the video below, the impact of COVID-19 on the hospitality industry: