by Thinus Ferreira
A prominent South African hotelier is slamming MultiChoice over the pay-TV operator's expensive DStv commercial rates, explaining why MultiChoice is unsupportive of South Africa's tourism industry and why it has become better for hotels to drop DStv in rooms and to replace the expensive pay-TV service with up to 3 video streaming services per room which are cheaper and offering more value.
MultiChoice's DStv commercial bouquets are known as "DStv Stay" packages and are tailored for businesses and commercial accommodations, like hotels that subscribe to it and offer DStv for hotel guests on the TV sets in their rooms.
In an open letter published on Tuesday 7 November 2022 in the BusinessDay newspaper, Anton Gillis, CEO of the Kruger Gate Hotel, slams MultiChoice for how bad MultiChoice has become and how much easier it has become for hotels to rather offer guests various streaming services which are cheaper, than DStv which has become too expensive.
"It's increasingly easy for hoteliers to offer other options to guests. For the same price as a single DStv bouquet, they could have dedicated accounts for two or three of the biggest streaming services in each room," Anton Gillis writes.
He explains in his open letter that the DStv bouquet used by most hotels costs R390 per month, per room. "That means a typical 100-room hotel is spending close to R40 000 a month, and R468 000 a year, just on DStv".
"For an industry that's still struggling to recover from the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and its attendant lockdowns, that's simply untenable," he writes.
According to Anton Gillis "the high cost of DStv sticks out like a sore thumb, especially when the typical hotel guest only spends about 10 hours of their day in their room. For eight of those hours, they're sleeping".
He explains how he tried to contact MultiChoice to hear how the company could support his tourism business to lower the DStv Stay fees. MultiChoice offered the Kruger Gate Hotel a 9% discount with very little flexibility.
"Right now we pay R678 600 a year for DStv in 145 rooms. A 9% discount brings that down to R617 526 a year. That's hardly going to turn anyone's fortunes around."
"Don't get me wrong, I'd love to keep supporting DStv. It's an SA offering that's home to some really good products. But if I'm going to keep doing so it needs to show similar levels of support for the SA tourism industry," he writes.
"If the choice is between keeping staff employed and rewarding loyalty with salary increases or having DStv in every room, I know where my money's going."
Anton Gillis praises LG Electronics and Netflix, saying "Electronics giant LG and streaming pioneer Netflix have embraced this new future. If a hotel has LG smart TVs, guests can log in to their Netflix account while checking in before being automatically logged off on checkout."
"Sure, it means guests might not be able to enjoy DStv's live sports offerings, but it will only be able to hold on to that monopoly for so long."
Anton Gillis writes that "DStv could come together with representatives from SA's tourism and hospitality sector and find an innovative, collaborative solution that’s mutually beneficial".
Read his open letter in its entirety here.
