Durban hotels take a tip from 'Baywatch'

Facing a glut of unsold hotel rooms just days before the 2010 World Cup kicks off, the South African resort town of Durban, which bills itself as "the warmest place to be" during the month-long tournament, is resorting to a racy ad campaign it hopes will coax tourists to town.

According to Tuesday's [Johannesburg] Times, Durban hotel owners are retaining the services of "bikini-clad babes and surfer dudes in board shorts" to distribute flyers and sunblock at busy intersections in the cities of Johannesburg and Bloemfontein.

June and July, of course, are winter months in South Africa.

The unsold inventory of hotels was caused in part, the article suggests, by the decision of FIFA's hospitality arm, Match, to reserve thousands of Durban rooms in advance of the world's biggest sporting event. That created the impression among soccer fans who didn't deal with Match that rooms couldn't be had in the coastal town, host of five first-round matches, including the June 25 Portugal-Brazil showdown, and two in the knock-out round. But in the last two weeks Match released its grip on thousands of unsold rooms, creating a glut amid scant demand.

"A dilemma has been created, [and] it's devastating," Jane Pillay, of Durban's Chamber of Commerce, told the newspaper.