Is South Africa’s hotel industry ready for next year’s World Cup onslaught? EWAN CAMERON, Managing Director of the Johannesburg-based AFRICAN SUN group shares with us a critical assessment of the pros and cons.

2010 is South Africa’s biggest opportunity to prove to the world just how far its hotel industry and wider tourism offer has moved since the dark days of apartheid ; economic sanctions were removed as recently as 1989. The year Nelson Mandela was released, 1990, South Africa received less than 1 million visitors, in the subsequent years South Africa’s arrivals have grown to over 9.5 million last year, yet still less than Egypt, with almost 12 m, and far behind Italy which boasts 39 million arrivals.

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