South Africa has enough accommodation available for all who visit the country during next year's Soccer World Cup, Tourism Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk said on Tuesday.

"The essence of the message we would like to convey to you is that South Africa has enough accommodation for 2010," he told a media briefing at Parliament in Cape Town.

Van Schalkwyk repeated that there was no reason to question the availability of accommodation in the country.

"We have available at least 202,000 rooms... [A total of] 107 000 of those rooms are graded by the Grading Council of SA. So we are confident that we will be able to deal with whatever for the duration of the World Cup."

An estimated 450 000 people are expected to visit South Africa during the course of the six-week event, set to kick off on June 11.

The tourism minister said he was "very satisfied" with the results of a recent accommodation audit ? conducted by his department ? that showed there was sufficient accommodation.

"This audit has given us the first comprehensive overview of its kind of accommodation establishments in South Africa, and the resulting national accommodation database will be a powerful tourism tool long beyond the World Cup," he said.

The main findings of the audit included:

  • There were at least 18 882 accommodation establishments in South Africa, of which 7492 were graded, and 11 390 ungraded;
  • There were at least 202 712 rooms in the country, of which 107 119 were graded and 95 593 ungraded;
  • There were at least 7520 accommodation establishments in host cities, within a 50km radius of stadiums; and
  • There were at least 100 853 rooms in host cities, within a 50km radius of stadiums.
Speaking at the briefing, MATCH executive chairman Jaime Byrom told journalists that both national and international online ticket requests in Fifa's third sales phase ? which started after last week's celebrated final draw for the event ? had surged.

In the first 48 hours, a total of 263 501 requests were received, of which 191,899 were requested within South Africa, and 71 602 internationally.

Beefing up tourist info

Prior to December 5, a total of 671 914 tickets had been sold, he said.

Van Schalkwyk also announced the establishment of an online accommodation booking portal; www.Rooms4U.travel, which, he said, would open in February next year.

Establishments now had up to the end of January to register on the site.

He also announced the establishment of a tourist contact centre, which can be reached by calling +27 87 803 INFO.

"There is now a single point to get all tourism information... It is already operational 24/7, and when we come to the World Cup it will be further beefed up to make sure we provide all the information in a number of languages."

According to notes distributed at the briefing, the centre will offer help in English, French, German, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish.

"We are now confident we can deal with whatever will be required of us," Van Schalkwyk said.