South Africa’s listed hoteliers have finally shaken off the lingering after-effects of the pandemic. Now the question is whether they can grow beyond simply charging more for the rooms they already have.

Results from City Lodge Hotels and Southern Sun tell a similar story on that front: occupancy remains below pre-2020 peaks at Southern Sun and short of management’s targets at City Lodge, so pricing power — not a surge in demand — is doing most of the work.

But beneath that shared backdrop, the two groups are pulling in different directions. City Lodge is leaning on business travel and ancillary revenue such as food and beverage to defend its position; Southern Sun is riding a leisure and tourism recovery, backed by conferencing and eventing demand. Both are looking past occupancy for their next leg of growth — City Lodge through a modest room expansion at Waterfall City and Southern Sun by reinvesting in its existing portfolio rather than adding to it.

City Lodge’s results for the year to June 30 show, in CEO Andrew Widegger’s words, a business that has “most definitely” completed its recovery from the pandemic, but one that is now facing a tougher act: disciplined growth.

Revenue topped R2.2bn for the first time, up 10% on 2025. Occupancy rose two percentage points to 58%, and adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, amortisation and rent (ebitdar) climbed 15% to R675m, lifting the margin to 30.6%. Profit, though, slipped 5% to R203m.

Read the full article by Adele Shevel in the Financial Mail here.