{"id":874916,"date":"2026-09-11T09:00:53","date_gmt":"2026-09-11T07:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=874916"},"modified":"2026-09-11T09:01:06","modified_gmt":"2026-09-11T07:01:06","slug":"new-unique-restaurants-and-hotels-coming-to-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/874916\/new-unique-restaurants-and-hotels-coming-to-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"More unique restaurants and hotels coming to South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

City Lodge Hotels has reported a solid jump in earnings over the last financial year despite difficult economic conditions in South Africa, buoyed by international visitors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is prompting the group to expand its operations, opening new “bespoke” luxury restaurants and planning new hotels in popular tourist provinces like the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group said its performance was strong in the first three quarters of the year, before international conflicts subdued travel and holiday spending in the last quarter (ending June 2026).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The war between the US and Iran drove up oil prices and the cost of living, with travel costs being hit particularly hard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

City Lodge said the conflict “led to a softening in occupancy in the last quarter, albeit slightly ahead of the prior year.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Weekend stays and leisure breaks were particularly subdued over this period.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite difficult economic conditions, the company recorded increases in revenue and earnings, with group revenue rising by 10%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Earnings Before Interest, Taxation, Depreciation, Amortisation, and Rent (EBITDAR) also rose by 15% for the 2026 financial year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

City Lodge said that while South Africans had been hit hard by the recent rising living costs, international travel had been largely immune.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“International travel has been insulated from the domestic pressures as South Africa continues to be an affordable, sought-after holiday destination,” the company said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The Western Cape, with five of our hotels having been recently refurbished, benefitted from international travel and achieved a 21% increase in revenue.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cape Town has become a particularly popular holiday destination for international travellers in recent years due to its natural beauty and lower costs compared to other coastal destinations worldwide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

International travel support enabled City Lodge to keep its average room rate increase to 7% for the year, unchanged from the previous financial period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Diluted headline earnings per share rose by 4% to 34.4 cents, while adjusted diluted headline earnings per share saw a 20% increase to 41.6 cents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The strong financial performance for 2026 resulted in a 22% increase in the company’s final dividend of 11 cents, up from 9 cents in 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

City Lodge keeps growing<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Amid City Lodge’s strong performance in 2026, the group opened three new luxury restaurants along South Africa’s coastline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new restaurants were opened in Cape Town, Umhlanga, and Gqeberha, and are described by the group as “bespoke restaurants.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Its food and beverages segment was one of City Lodge’s best-performing portfolios, with revenue rising 14% in the last financial year and contributing 20% to total revenue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While results were strong, City Lodge said that cost-containment measures remain important to combat municipal service-delivery failures and rising inflation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Cost containment remains a key area of focus, as we try to mitigate the above-inflation increases in utility costs, and the failing municipal services, which often result in additional contingent supply costs,” it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The impact of lapses in municipal service delivery and rising inflation driven by global conflict resulted in increased operating costs for City Lodge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Total operating costs increased by 9%, but operating costs per room sold only increased by 6%,” the company said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the future, the group said it would focus on expanding its solar energy projects and improving water resilience for its sites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Environmental sustainability and resilience solutions continue to be a priority to mitigate the water and electricity supply challenges and high annual cost increases,” it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Phase 3 of our solar installation roll-out and the addition of more water resilience and sustainability solutions have been earmarked for the financial year 2027.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group also said it would focus on continued expansion in the next financial year, to add to its 56 existing hotels in South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It said these expansions would ideally focus on popular tourist destinations, including the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The group is actively pursuing expansion opportunities, specifically in areas such as the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal,” it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Feature<\/th>FY2026<\/th>FY2025<\/th>Change<\/th><\/tr><\/thead>
Revenue (R’000)<\/td>2,202,914<\/td>1,997,450<\/td>+10%<\/td><\/tr>
Adjusted Headline Earnings (R’000)<\/td>218,623<\/td>192,353<\/td>+14%<\/td><\/tr>
HEPS (cents)<\/td>41.8<\/td>34.6<\/td>+21%<\/td><\/tr>
Occupancy<\/td>58%<\/td>56%<\/td>+2 pp<\/td><\/tr>
Dividend (cents)<\/td>11<\/td>9<\/td>+22%<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/div><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

City Lodge got a big boost from international tourism this past year, and will expand its offerings to the areas they frequent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":131,"featured_media":853114,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"failed","_sma_x_autopost_error":"Instagram publishing failed: Instagram returned HTTP 400: Media ID is not available","_sma_x_post_id":"2098306055700631912","_sma_facebook_post_id":"191437357620492_2202144153939317","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[12170,25952,3024],"class_list":["post-874916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-city-lodge","tag-v-a-waterfront","tag-western-cape"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/131"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=874916"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874916\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":874951,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874916\/revisions\/874951"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/853114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=874916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=874916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=874916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}