Cape Town - Jaime Byron the executive chairman of FIFA's accommodation provider MATCH, said he was far more "comfortable" now than he had been before with the country's accommodation inventory.

Match had contracted more than 48 000 of the total rooms, which is near to its target of 55 000 rooms.

These rooms would be used to accommodate FIFA guests such as key sponsors and dignitaries.

Byron said 12 000 operators or 15 percent of all MATCH establishments are small enterprises, which surpassed FIFA's target to utilise 10 000 small providers.

He acknowledged that though there was a shortage of MATCH accommodation in some host cities, he didn't see this as a problem, adding that host cities in previous World Cups had also experienced a shortage of accommodation.

Byron noted that South Africans were now taking more interest in the World Cup with 70 percent of all applicants in the 72 hours since the latest ticketing stage began on Saturday being locals.

FIFA would also open ticketing centres in each of the host cities on 15 April, while MATCH would operate a last-minute sales call centre from the same month next year.

MATCH would also contract the equivalent of 50 000 return air seats between South African Airways (SAA) and Comair, he said.

Cape Town - Minister of Tourism Marthinus van Schalkwyk is "confident" that the country has enough accommodation for the 2010 World Cup.

Van Schalkwyk was briefing the media on his department's plans to launch a contact centre and booking website and detailed the country's readiness for 2010 on Tuesday, after the department carried out an audit of all available accommodation.

The audit revealed that the country had more than 202 000 rooms with over 405 000 beds available.

Van Schalkwyk said he was "satisfied", adding that it was enough for the 450 000 visitors expected to arrive in South Africa for the World Cup.

The audit also showed that the country had 18 882 accommodation establishments, of which 7 492 were graded and 11 390 ungraded.

Of the 202 712 rooms in the country, about half or 100 853 (7 520 establishments) were situated within a 50km radius of stadiums at host cities, while 107 119 of the total rooms had been graded.

The Western Cape had the highest number of establishments at 7 054, with 62 218 rooms, while KwaZulu-Natal had the second highest number of establishments with 2 906 (62 546 rooms), followed closely by Gauteng with 2 791 providers and 88 252 rooms.

The other provinces with over a thousand providers are the Eastern Cape with 2 105 establishments and Mpumalanga with 1 088.

Of the nine host cities, Cape Town had the highest number of accommodation establishments within a 50km radius of its stadium, with 2 690 providers - which represents 36 percent of all accommodation in host cities.

The Mother City is followed by Johannesburg with 1 545 providers, Durban with 1 067 and Pretoria with 940.