Reflection is one of the greatest abilities of mankind, especially after a year like 2020 where everything went pear shaped in a matter of weeks. All the best laid plans for literally every person in the world took a tumble and many of us were like the proverbial deer caught in bright headlights. Daily livelihoods were suddenly threatened in a way most of us could never have imagined – and what lay ahead was the great unknown.

Looking back on my monthly ramblings from earlier in the year, it becomes apparent that we have endured a tsunami of unimaginable proportions in a region that is so reliant on tourism for survival. Nothing could have prepared us for what transpired and from April until October, each and every one of us involved in the tourism industry, directly or indirectly, experienced waves of bewildered emotions, frustration, concern and panic, as we watched our incomes waning in an alarming way.

We have seen shifts in the property market the likes of which may never be experienced by other generations in their lifetime. Every aspect of the market, whether short-term or long-term, residential or commercial rentals, sales, builds and renovations… you name it, it took a beating. Nightly and monthly rental rates took a complete dive and whilst this had a huge impact on many hosts’ ability to survive from month to month, it was a cleansing process which served many purposes.

Whilst recovering from this will take time and has left numerous casualties along the way, nothing can beat the survival instinct of people who have a will to succeed against all odds. The creativity displayed by local holiday rental hosts has been astounding, to say the least. Many people have used the forced ‘downtime’ to update their accommodations, rebrand their listings, refresh their linens, clear out their clutter. And in doing so, they have given themselves a clearer view of the world around them.

People’s motivations have changed and creative ideas have been put into action. The next round of tourists will experience a reignited eagerness in their hosts, all excited at the prospect of getting back to being the passionate hosts they are, welcoming guests who are longing to get away from their own stressful lives and to relax and unwind.

One development emanating from this year’s madness has been a sifting out of many of the below-par accommodation offerings. Some of these existed as an afterthought rather than as a strategic intent to provide a quality experience to tourists. The net result is that serious hosts who have embraced the tourism industry and act as knowledgeable and experienced guides to guests have survived the year. And so they should.

The true value of tourists has suddenly become important again and this is one of those positive aspects that comes out of a year like this. We all know how we react when something we have had for years is suddenly taken away from us and through that, we learn to appreciate everything so much more, and with a different level of understanding. Whilst there will always be the opportunists in all walks of life, a shake-up like 2020 forces us all to reassess what is important and what is not.

From discussions with many local hosts, it seems that bookings for the holiday season are at a very high level and while we might not see that many international tourists, it sure does look as though South Africans are planning on enjoying and supporting local. The fact that larger houses sleeping between 8 and 12 guests have had to reduce their rates quite dramatically has not deterred owner hosts from accepting the bookings. There is a general acceptance that “it is what it is” and better to be back in the swing of things than to be moping about lost rentals because of the market squeeze.

We are all hoping for a year-end that catapults the memories of 2020 into oblivion and sets the scene for a year of economic recovery, social reintegration and a bright light to head towards as we adjust our way of living for as long as may be necessary. As my last chirp for the year, I wish all The Village NEWS readers a spectacular festive season and extend CabinCare’s best wishes for a relaxing and inspiring start to 2021.

As increased numbers of holiday rental hosts feel the momentum pick up, so the spirits of those involved are soaring at the prospect of a return to a semblance of normality. There are reports of increasing enquiries for year-end accommodation and hosts are anticipating a reasonable influx of South African visitors.

With few international travellers expected, heightened competition is developing in this market and many hosts are doing their utmost to spruce up their accommodation offerings in order to compete in what, this year, will be an over-flooded market. This leaves holidaymakers with a wide choice, especially as there are no clear guidelines on nightly rates.

Research on Airbnbs in the Overstrand shows that, for example, quality accommodation for a six- sleeper can range from R1 800 per night to R3 500 per night. Whilst normally one would be able to ascribe this discrepancy to the difference in quality of the amenities, appliances, décor and finishes, this year very similar properties offering the same amenities are on the market at vastly different rates.

The nightly rates for 10-sleeper properties range from around R3 500 to R12 500, with a few notable exceptions – for which most South Africans would have little appetite – at up to R24 000 per night.

A new trend, which is very much a sign of the times, is for people to list their properties directly on Facebook, Gumtree, or any other website that is not a formal booking platform, like Airbnb, Booking.com and the rest. Whilst this is an alternative means of sourcing guests, there are some red flags for travellers to consider. The main reason people avoid portals like Airbnb is due to the fees they charge both guests and hosts, but with that comes a level of security and protection otherwise not guaranteed.

Most of us are aware of the recent debacle in Camps Bay, Cape Town, where a group known as ‘activists’ booked an Airbnb for a weekend under false pretences and then stayed on as squatters to highlight housing and land issues. From a legal perspective, this was undertaken in a deceitful manner and with criminal intent, as stated by the owner’s attorneys, and the end result was that the case went to court and the culprits were forced to vacate or face eviction.

The point here is that anyone offering holiday accommodation directly to guests has no protection whatsoever should a similar situation occur. Unless the guests are known personally to the owners, or family or friends who can vouch for them, you are opening yourself up to all kinds of risks if something goes wrong. One of the key advantages of listing on a recognised platform is that there are strict vetting procedures for hosts and guests, and various forms of protection are in place.

If letting directly, owners need to introduce some system of guest validation and verification, and should consider implementing strict checks to protect themselves and their properties. They should have an appropriate rental agreement and consider additional checks on prospective guests’ financial liquidity, or possibly require larger deposits. Having no rental agreement in place is highly risky and could result in untold legal complications, should things go wrong.

In the Camps Bay incident, the owner could immediately call on back-up and assistance from Airbnb in support of their stance against the guests. Many Airbnb hosts were panicked by these unexpected events and Airbnb responded appropriately with the following message:

“We want to reassure you that protecting Airbnb’s host community is of key importance to us. We are keeping an open line of communication with the host and are reviewing all reasonable options, as overstays go against our terms of service.

“At Airbnb we are continuously working on ways to make our community as secure as possible for everyone. That’s why, before booking, guests are verified by asking for their government ID, legal name and address, and Airbnb only charges for reservations at the point of booking.

“In addition to these deterrents Airbnb also provides hosts with the security of a Host Guarantee which provides protection for up to $1 million for guest damages to properties.”

Whilst many hosts are trying to minimise their expenses and achieve the highest possible income, renting directly to guests can bring about huge challenges and it’s that protection that one pays for when listing on a recognised website. That said, there is no doubt that the ‘new normal’ will bring a change to many of the traditional ways of going about holiday lets and hopefully the result will be a positive one that benefits all parties.

The Women’s Day long weekend was an inspiration to all in the Overberg and spirits are soaring amongst management and staff of hotels, guesthouses and all graded or accredited establishments. Whilst the traditional Airbnb host still fails to comprehend the stance of the Tourism Minister, and rightly so, that has not stopped people from accepting bookings and welcoming guests, albeit at a distance.

It is clear that the majority of citizens have reached the peak of their frustration with the regulations and, with a sense of camaraderie and mutual respect, all hosts are going out of their way to get back to business and provide accommodations while implementing the strictest of cleaning protocols.

The formal establishments are obviously not complaining and kudos to them for all they do to make the tourist experience a memorable one. The wide range of self-catering accommodations listed on the online portals like Airbnb, Booking.com and the rest are all starting to gear up in the hope that there will be a surge in intra-provincial travel like we saw over the Women’s Day weekend.

A lot has been written about the cleaning protocols for self-catering accommodations and Airbnb is one of the companies that has released detailed instructions on the process to follow. Many people glibly think it is a ‘no-brainer’ but when one looks into the detail of what needs to be done, then the realisation hits that it takes time and thoroughness to ensure that accommodations are Covid-19 ready.

As part of the preparation for this new era of hosting, people need to ensure that their listings reflect the status of their compliance to hygiene regulations, as this is something which guests are now concerned about with most booking enquiries. Whilst the guidelines set out an endless string of the obvious, it is worthwhile for all hosts to familiarise themselves with these.

The question has been asked a number of times as to what the Hermanus holiday rental playing field will look like moving forward. Prior to the arrival of the Coronavirus, there was already an oversupply of holiday rentals as a result of the 2018 riots, compounded by the ever-increasing stranglehold on the economy of the country that we have become familiar with. We saw many new listings appear across all the portals but more and more the nightly rates were being driven down as holidaymakers found themselves spoilt for choice.

A quick research exercise on Property24 gives one an eye-opening picture of what has changed in the past number of months. There are a lot more properties listed for long-term rentals, many of which were traditionally holiday rentals. There is also a phenomenal number of properties for sale and some suburbs are showing a higher number of listings than six months ago.

These are all signs of the overall impact of both the economic crunch and the Coronavirus fall-out which has changed the face of the rental and sales market for the foreseeable future.

The interesting dynamic is that in both the long-term rental and sales markets, pricing hasn’t necessarily seen the decline one might have expected. Of the 171 rental listings across the broader Hermanus area, 62% are in the R 10 000 to R 20 000 per month rental bracket. Only 3% (five properties) fall below R 10 000 per month. If one then breaks this down further by suburb, the trend is very much the same.

Another interesting point to note is that there are over 800 listings of properties for sale in the area, from Arabella to Voëlklip. Sandbaai leads the pack with almost 180, followed by Westclliff with 153. The listings in Onrus (114), Vermont (103) & Voëlklip (102) also show that price flexibility does not appear to be the order of the day and, according to most of the local agents, only correctly priced properties are selling quickly.

The one factor that is clearly evident is that many people can, for a multitude of reasons, no longer hold onto their second properties and are not getting the expected return on investment from those that were purchased as income-generating holiday homes. The uncertainty of how long it will take to rebuild a revenue stream from these properties has also taken its toll on the desirability of owning a holiday home.

So the future remains a mystery, for now. Market dynamics change by the week and we can only continue to find ways to spread the word about what a perfect holiday destination the Overberg is – and to attract the South African public to our shores whilst waiting for the international borders to reopen.

The good news is that many of our fellow countrymen who have not been here before will realise what they have been missing and that will hopefully have an impact on rebuilding the local economy.

While most of us are in a recovery stage from the initial shock of the lockdown’s impact on the tourism industry, now is the time to get creative and be an ambassador for our region by whatever means possible. Each and every person involved in the tourism sector needs to make a concerted effort to attract South Africans to the Overberg when regulations allow local leisure travel to recommence.

Whilst the jury is out as to whether this will extend to international tourists before 2021, there is a captive audience of SA travellers who need to hear about what we have to offer.

Whether you have a 2-sleeper or 10-sleeper Airbnb, traditional guesthouse, boutique hotel, B&B or self-catering facility, you need to spread the word and start creating an awareness of the Overberg, the likes of which has never been seen before.

Social media is now the prime tool through which we can reach tens of thousands of people by simply making clever and creative use of platforms like Facebook. As mentioned in a previous article, the mantra “When the going gets tough, the tough go marketing’ has never been more applicable than it is now.

Each and every tourism facility should have its own Facebook page or website. If you don’t and are wondering how you are going to rebuild your guest bookings, it is critical that you create a presence to capitalise on the wave that will come. It is a very simple process to leverage posts from other companies/media/tourism agencies/art galleries and the like that are posting good news stories about the region. These are the posts which you should be sharing with your network of contacts in order to broaden the reach.

There is a wonderful term in advertising and marketing called ‘Spaced Repetition’, which simply means that the more you see information over a period of time, the more likely you are to remember it. This is what we want potential tourists to experience, so the more they read and hear about the Overberg, the more likely they are to remember it as an option.

The key tips to spreading the word are the following:

• From your Facebook page, ‘Like’ the pages or join the Groups of other companies/media/tourism agencies whose posts you want to see. Examples of these are Hermanus Tourism Bureau, Hermanus Online Travel Magazine, Hermanus Western Cape, Village Explorer, My Hermanus, all of the Wineries’ FB pages, all of the Festival FB pages… the list is endless but should be focused on those aspects that will be of interest to tourists.
• When you see those posts, pick the relevant ones to share to your network and add a narrative to the post share that personalises it for the reader. The relevant posts are those that will attract the reader to consider making the Overberg their destination of choice whilst overseas travel is restricted.
• Those of us who are proactive on Facebook will know that every week we get a link to that week’s edition of The Village News. By simply sharing that link to your contacts, you are increasing the reach to such a degree that you are bound to touch people who may never have considered coming to the Overberg for a holiday.
• Once you have the hang of it, this process will not take much of your time on a daily basis and the more you are posting from your page, the more you will increase your visibility when sharing posts of interest to tourists.

The point is that in this Covid-19 world we are now living in, it is no longer enough to simply rely on listings on the holiday rental portals, even if your facilities are listed on many of them.

In the upcoming months there are going to be even more properties listed for holiday rentals, which will yet again have a downward impact on nightly rates because of the oversupply. We are already seeing traditional holiday rental properties being put onto the long-term rental market and in time, potential long-term tenants will be spoilt for choice.

Even some of the well-known B&Bs are considering this as an option, particularly if their historical guest bookings have been from overseas guests. Whether the rentals will be realistic or not remains to be seen, as traditionally this market has pegged long-term rentals at rates above what is realistic for the majority of accommodation seekers.

This is one of the most exciting times to realign, readjust and reassess your priorities. By climbing on the ‘spread-the-word’ bandwagon and shouting from the treetops just how great our region is, our communal effort can only but bring the desired results. After all, considering how much misinformation and fake news was fed to us all via social media since the start of the pandemic, imagine the impact of truth being fed to all our combined contacts, consistently and repeatedly.

As we all adjust to life in lockdown and the uncertainty of what lies ahead, writing about the state of the holiday rental market might seem like a slap in the face by a close friend. If ever there was a time in my life when I wished I had a crystal ball on my desk, it is now. The global future has never been as difficult to imagine as it is at the moment. Some older folk are even comparing the cataclysm of this pandemic to that of World War II.

In our small part of the world, where the local economy was starting to show positive signs of recovery after the 2018 riots, the lockdown is having a devastating impact on the short- and long-term accommodation sector. There isn’t anyone with a hotel, guesthouse, bed & breakfast or Airbnb room-to-let that hasn’t taken a financial bath in the past two months and the predictions for the rest of this year are already looking pretty gloomy.

There are many scenarios that could play out in the next few months and no one can be sure which way it will go. The biggest concern for many who have relied on their rental income as a means to survive month by month is that the income stream has simply dried up, overnight. In the same way as the world is forced to endure what some see as a global cleansing, so we in the Overstrand are going to see a change in tourism dynamics that even the most astute hosts and business owners may find hard to comprehend, never mind the adjustments that will have to be made.

One encouraging change I have observed is the extent to which many people seem to have had an epiphany in terms of who they are and how they’ve been living, and how this will impact their lives moving forward. Humanity has been forced back to the basics, and the compassion and support shown to those less fortunate in our community have been profound. I doubt that many people will come out of this unchanged in one way or another, and I hope that some of our arrogance and lack of consideration will change as we are reminded of what is important in life. I know it has done that for me.

The one thing to level the playing field is that we are all in this together, whether we like it or not. For once, this is not a political positioning of the powerful, as nothing is more powerful right now than COVID-19. If ever there was a time to behave with humility then this is it. For those of us with Alpha-type personalities, it is challenging to say the least. We will need to adapt to the new restrictions as, for once in most of our lifetimes, we can only plan within a short time-frame until some sense of normality returns.

If I dare make some predictions about what could transpire in the next few months, the one obvious focus for all accommodation providers will be a new approach to sanitation and cleanliness, the likes of which we haven’t seen before. Once the tourists start returning to our shores they will want all kinds of reassurances that hygiene protocols are in place.

Many hosts have asked me the question we all want answered: When will normality return? Taking all things into consideration, and being realistic rather than blindly hopeful, I suspect we will not see a real pick-up in numbers before the end of the year. This prospect is shattering for all concerned, but it is largely out of our control and in the hands of the powers that be to determine when the “new normal” will become a reality. What we will need to do is to make sure we have a plan in place in order to adapt quickly to whatever the outcome will be.

If there is one thing I can predict, it is that the spirit of survival of South Africans and the incredible levels of positivity and camaraderie to be found in this town will make the transition to the new normal a united one. We have a tough and bumpy road ahead, but as long as everyone accepts that we are all in this together we’ll be able to remain positive rather than fretting about what we cannot change.