SPECIAL FEATURE ANNIVERSARY FEATURE
Wild Coast Sun Resort celebrates four decades of operation The Wild Coast Sun, Sun International’s only beach resort on the unspoiled coastline between KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape, is marking 40 years of creating unforgettable memories.
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oday, the resort remains as popular as it was when it first opened. Visitors are able to step out of the hotel and directly onto the beach and they are spoilt for choice by the wide range of activities that have been added over the past 40 years. Built at an initial cost of R25-million, the Wild Coast Sun opened its doors for its soft launch on 18 October 1981 – in what was then the Transkei – and the resort opened to the public on 1 December of that year. Since the early days in the 1980s when a three-night stay, including breakfast and activities commenced at just R139, and staff needed permits to work in the Transkei, a multitude of guests have taken
a walk on the wild side. Prior to Covid-19, the Resort welcomed 309,851 guests a year, on average. “Out of season rates for sea-facing rooms are about R50, and in season, as demand escalates, the price rises to R73,” reads a Sunday Times article on October 25, 1981. “If you’re not well-oiled, you’ll need some luck at the roulette wheel to keep you at this lap of luxury.” During Apartheid, when gambling was illegal in South Africa, Durbanites would flock by bus over weekends to try their luck at the Wild Coast Sun Casino. The Eastern Cape Gambling Board recently granted Wild Coast Sun a 20-year casino licence, bringing certainty to the Resort’s employees
20 Business Events Africa October 2021
and surrounding communities. The 750-seat Tropical Nites theatre was equally popular, hosting many international shows. The Resort, straddling the Eastern Cape side of the Mtamvuna River border with KwaZulu-Natal, and which also runs along the Indian Ocean coastline, has an 18-hole Championship golf course designed by leading United States golf course architect Robert Trent Jones II and built for R2-million in May 1983. In 1986/7 the resort was further upgraded and expanded at an additional cost of R25-million, with the addition of a new wing of 136 hotel rooms, a swimming pool and a solarium. The
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