Budget and functional hotel owner, City Lodge has said that its performance metrics are improving after the halting of Covid-19 restrictions and the opening up of the economy. The group said in a trading statement via the JSE's stock exchange news service that since reporting its interim results for the six months to end-December 2021 in February 2022, travel continued its rebound and the hospitality sector embraced renewed activity. "With all our South African hotels (SA) being open from February 2022, the group achieved 47% occupancy for the month in our South African operations, as more corporates and government departments resumed travel. Occupancies in March 2022 in SA peaked for the quarter at 58% with the continued trend of strong weekend and leisure occupancies, and boosted by increased corporate activity and business travel," it said. Inclement weather in SA in April 2022 slowed demand, especially over the Easter weekend, but occupancies still finished off aligned to projections of 49% for the month in SA, and gratefully our hotels in KZN sustained minimal damage from the flooding. May 2022 achieved occupancies of 52% for SA, and 49% for the group, which were on par with pre-Covid occupancies in May 2019. Salary reductions were suspended with effect from May 2022. The group encouraged all of its staff to vaccinate and it had achieved a 90% vaccination rate. Shareholders were advised that City Lodge’s headline earnings per share and earnings per share for the year to end-June 2022 were expected to show at least a 75% improvement, before adjusting for any impairment reversals and or charges, compared with a reported headline loss per share of 91 cents and a loss per share of 161 cents for the comparable period. Alistair Anderson