Budget invests R45m on airport facility upgrades for 2010
23. Apr, 2009
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Budget Rent a Car, a subsidiary of McCarthy Limited, will need to spend R45 million over the next 14 months upgrading and refurbishing its kiosks, depot infrastructure and check-out facilities at six South African international airports, managing director Ray Booth said today.
The upgrades and refurbishments will take place at OR Tambo International, Cape Town International, La Mercy Airport in KwaZulu-Natal, Port Elizabeth, and the Kruger Mpumalanga International.
Booth said the move was prompted by the restructuring and reallocation of the car rental facilities at certain airports, as well as the Airports Company South Africa (ACSA) requirements for the World Cup which is expected to attract some 3 million foreign visitors not only for the event itself but for a few years thereafter. “History shows that the host country benefits from a double-digit increase in inbound tourism arrivals for at least three years after the event, and we need to expand our capacity at South Africa’s major airports in order to handle the increase in airport traffic,” he said.
South Africa showed a 5.5% increase in international arrival numbers in 2008 according to South African Tourism. Visitor numbers from important self-drive source markets the United Kingdom and Europe were down on the previous year. However, most positive for South Africa in terms of growth was an increase of 4.9 per cent from Australia and New Zealand.
My name is Muzi Mohale a full-time travel blogger, your host at Travelwires.com responsible for all editorial on this blog. I blog about the travel and tourism industry in Africa. Apart from blogging about tourism, I also run 
Interesting that the restructuring of the car rental facilities is costing the car rental companies so much. Hopefully they wont react like ACSA and increase their prices to finance it!