Sunlux belongs in the gaming-resort volume through Sun International and Sun City.
Position
Sunlux belongs in the gaming-resort volume through Sun International and Sun City. Its significance extends beyond casinos: the collection connected destination hotels into a southern African journey. This entry records that historical proposition alongside today’s differently constituted Luxury Collection. [1, 3]
The Name
Sunlux is the historical collection name carried by the register. Sun International’s current public landing page uses Luxury Collection. The two names identify related marketing histories, but their property lists cannot be treated as interchangeable. [1, 3]
Corporate Roots
Sun International traces its origins to 1967 and Sol Kerzner. That is the group’s own account of its lineage; it is not presented here as the incorporation date of every subsequent operating or holding company. [2]
Sun City
Sun City opened in 1979. Sun International describes its combination of accommodation, gaming and entertainment as a formative integrated-resort model. The later luxury collection inherited this destination-making approach while also embracing hotels outside casino resorts. [2, 3]
Political Geography
Sun City was developed in Bophuthatswana, an apartheid-era homeland whose claimed independence provided a different regulatory setting for gambling and entertainment. Its early commercial opportunity was inseparable from this political arrangement. [11]
Cultural Boycott
The resort became a focus of opposition to apartheid, including the international musical campaign against performing at Sun City. This history belongs beside its entertainment achievements: the same stages carried commercial spectacle and political controversy. [11]
Kerzner’s Authorship
Kerzner’s relevant contribution was the construction of a destination around multiple reasons to visit. The combination of hotels, recreation and performance helps explain Sun City’s place in hospitality history more precisely than personal wealth or celebrity. [2, 11]
Documentary Sunlux
A March 2015 Shortlist feature explicitly identified The Table Bay, The Palace of the Lost City, The Maslow and The Royal Livingstone with Sunlux. This supplies contemporary evidence of the name and its hotel associations. [3]
A Journey Across Settings
Read as a collection, these hotels connected Cape Town, Sun City, Johannesburg and Livingstone. The editorial significance lies in the movement between waterfront, resort, business city and river landscape, rather than a single architectural style. [3]
A Collection, Not One Building
Sunlux is treated here as a portfolio-level entry. Individual buildings warrant their own architectural and operating histories.
The Current List
The current Luxury Collection landing page names The Palace of the Lost City, GrandWest, Time Square, The Maslow Sandton and Boardwalk. This five-property display is the dated public offer reviewed for this master. [1]
A Changed Geography
The displayed collection is concentrated in South Africa, spanning inland and coastal destinations. [1]
Different Hotel Categories
The Maslow explicitly describes itself as a four-star business hotel. Consequently, membership of the collection should not be read as a uniform five-star classification across all participating hotels. [7]
The Palace as Anchor
The Palace is a hotel within Sun City, linking this entry to the larger gaming and recreational destination. [5]
The 1992 Opening
The Palace opened in 1992. It represents a later stage in Sun City’s development, giving the destination a conspicuous palace-themed hotel distinct from the resort’s original opening in 1979. [2, 4]
Invented Antiquity
The lost-city narrative is a designed fantasy. The Palace’s presentation draws on an imagined ancient African kingdom; it should be understood as theatrical hospitality architecture, not the restoration of an archaeological palace. [4]
Sculpture
Sun International credits Danie de Jager with bronze wildlife sculptures at The Palace. These works make animals part of the hotel’s ceremonial and visual vocabulary, carrying the landscape theme into constructed space. [4]
Golf Authorship
The Lost City Golf Course is attributed to Gary Player. Golf extends the resort’s programme beyond gaming and establishes a separate reason for a stay, with a specifically named sporting designer. [4]
Accommodation Scale
The current Palace Luxury Collection page publishes 335 rooms, including 15 suites. This is the operator’s contemporary inventory statement, rather than an independently audited count or a figure projected backwards to opening. [5]
Shared Resort Facilities
The Palace’s published guest information includes access to the Valley of Waves, resort transport and recreational facilities. The hotel experience consequently depends on infrastructure beyond the bedroom and its immediate public rooms. [5]
Included and Additional Services
Breakfast and listed resort benefits appear in the Palace’s guest information. Their inclusion is relevant to the accommodation proposition, although individual reservations remain subject to their booked rate and conditions. [5]
Landscape Position
The Palace belongs to Sun City, close to Pilanesberg. Hotel and national park are distinct places. [4]
GrandWest
GrandWest supplies the Cape Town entertainment-resort component of the current collection. [1]
Time Square
Time Square supplies the Pretoria component of the current collection. [1]
Boardwalk
Boardwalk is situated in Summerstrand, Gqeberha, near Hobie Beach. Its coastal position combines a seaside hotel setting with casino, dining and events facilities. [6]
Coastal Entertainment
At Boardwalk, the beach and entertainment complex form complementary reasons to visit. This is a different spatial model from an inland destination such as Sun City: an established urban coastline supplies much of the surrounding attraction. [6]
Meetings at Boardwalk
Conferencing is part of Boardwalk’s published offer. Business events help explain the hotel’s programme alongside leisure visits, showing how the resort addresses several demand streams within one destination. [6]
The Maslow Sandton
The Maslow serves Sandton’s financial district, near the Gautrain station, Sandton City and Nelson Mandela Square. Its location makes business access central to its identity within the collection. [7]
Business Accommodation
The Maslow’s published room range extends to suites with additional living facilities. Its executive suite includes a kitchenette, lounge and private dining room, supporting uses beyond an overnight bedroom. [7]
Meetings and Dining
The Maslow advertises six adaptable conference venues and Lacuna Bistro. Here, meetings and meals organise the stay as directly as recreational attractions do at the group’s destination resorts. [7]
The Table Bay’s Opening
IHG’s account records The Table Bay’s inauguration by Nelson Mandela in May 1997. Its waterfront history is an important part of the former Sunlux association and predates the hotel’s InterContinental identity. [8]
The Waterfront Setting
The Table Bay occupies Cape Town’s V&A Waterfront. Its present hotel page highlights direct connection to Victoria Wharf, making the surrounding shopping and waterfront district part of the guest’s immediate environment. [9]
The 2024 Agreement
On 1 July 2024, IHG announced the agreement to bring InterContinental to The Table Bay through a redevelopment with the V&A Waterfront. The announcement specified that Sun International would manage the hotel. [8]
Brand, Management and Investment
That agreement separates three roles: IHG supplies the InterContinental brand, Sun International the stated management arrangement, and the V&A Waterfront the redevelopment investment. [8]
A Forecast Kept in Its Period
The 2024 release anticipated reopening in the fourth quarter of 2025 and described a planned 306-room configuration. These were forecasts, not completion records. [8]
Current Table Bay Status
The live InterContinental Table Bay Cape Town page states that the hotel is fully open with all facilities operational. The present operating record therefore supersedes a description of the hotel as merely a future conversion. [9]
Current Table Bay Offer
IHG currently describes four restaurants, a spa and a pool. These amenities accompany the waterfront location under the InterContinental identity; they do not establish continuing membership in Sun International’s displayed five-property Luxury Collection. [9, 1]
Royal Livingstone Today
Minor Hotels now presents the property as The Royal Livingstone Victoria Falls Zambia Hotel by Anantara. This current brand identity must accompany any discussion of its historical Sunlux association. [10, 3]
River and Falls
The Royal Livingstone is on the Zambian bank of the Zambezi in Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park. Its official presentation includes complimentary access to Victoria Falls, placing the river and waterfall at the centre of the stay. [10]
Two Different Continuities
Table Bay and Royal Livingstone illustrate different forms of continuity. The former’s announced InterContinental arrangement retained Sun International as manager; the latter is currently presented through Anantara. Historical collection membership cannot establish identical present relationships. [8, 10]
Hotel Recognition
Sun International’s current SUN GHA programme connects participating hotel stays with GHA DISCOVERY. It provides a hotel-recognition framework that can operate across distinct properties without requiring architectural or destination uniformity. [12]
Reward Currency
The published programme uses DISCOVERY Dollars, with one D$ corresponding to one US dollar, and describes earnings of four to seven per cent on eligible spending. These are programme terms, not a guaranteed reduction on every booking. [12]
Gaming and Hotel Programmes
Sun International presents SUN GHA and SUN MVG as separate programme routes. For this entry, hotel recognition and gaming-related benefits should be recorded separately, with eligibility determined by the relevant programme. [7, 12]
The Hospitality Model
The collection can be interpreted as a way to connect several kinds of hospitality demand: destination leisure, business travel, coastal stays and entertainment. Its unity comes from selection and operation more than from a repeated room design. [1, 6, 7]
The Role of the Casino
Gaming is fundamental to Sun City’s historical model, but it does not define every associated hotel. The Maslow’s business orientation and Royal Livingstone’s river setting demonstrate the wider hospitality territory covered by the Sunlux story. [2, 7, 10]
Authorship and the Register
Sol Kerzner is the established related person, LHL-P-003. The Palace, The Table Bay and Royal Livingstone are useful property anchors by name. This master assigns no new property or person codes.
Further Authorship Research
Danie de Jager’s sculpture and Gary Player’s course warrant further authorship research against this anchor. [4]
Why the Entry Endures
The historical value of Sunlux survives changes to its list. It records an operator’s attempt to connect differentiated hotels into a regional proposition. The current collection supplies a later chapter, rather than a reason to erase the earlier one. This is the master’s editorial assessment.
Record Boundaries
The five-property list is a snapshot of a public collection page, not a complete corporate asset register. Hotel inventory, legal ownership and marketing membership require different evidence and should be updated independently when their records change.
Candour
Most operational evidence comes from hotel companies and is attributed accordingly. Shortlist establishes historical Sunlux associations; South African History Online supplies political context. No formal date for a Sunlux-to-Luxury-Collection renaming is established. The Palace’s room count is operator-published. Table Bay’s current open status is verified through IHG, while its exact reopening date remains unstated. The historic and current portfolios are deliberately recorded separately.
## Sources
Signed source titles below are active hyperlinks. Accessed 8 September 2026. Bracketed numbers in the text refer to this list.
1. [Sun International · Luxury Collection](https://www.suninternational.com/luxury-collection) 2. [Sun International · Our History](https://corporate.suninternational.com/about/history) 3. [Shortlist · Into Africa, 18 March 2015](https://www.shortlist.com/news/into-africa) 4. [Sun International · The Palace of the Lost City](https://www.suninternational.com/palace) 5. [Sun International · Luxury Collection: The Palace of the Lost City](https://www.suninternational.com/luxury-collection/palace-of-the-lost-city) 6. [Sun International · Boardwalk](https://www.suninternational.com/boardwalk) 7. [Sun International · The Maslow Sandton](https://www.suninternational.com/maslow) 8. [IHG Hotels & Resorts · IHG Hotels & Resorts in partnership with the V&A Waterfront bring InterContinental brand to Cape Town, 1 July 2024](https://www.ihgplc.com/en/news-and-media/news-releases/2024/ihg-hotels-resorts-in-partnership-with-the-v-and-a-waterfront-bring-ic-brand-to-cape-town) 9. [IHG Hotels & Resorts · InterContinental Table Bay Cape Town](https://www.ihg.com/intercontinental/hotels/gb/en/cape-town/cpttb/hoteldetail) 10. [Minor Hotels · The Royal Livingstone Victoria Falls Zambia Hotel by Anantara](https://www.minorhotels.com/en/destinations/zambia/livingstone/the-royal-livingstone-victoria-falls-zambia-hotel-by-anantara) 11. [South African History Online · Solomon Kerzner; Gilbert Silber’s 1999 essay, page updated 23 August 2019](https://sahistory.org.za/people/solomon-kerzner) 12. [Sun International · SUN GHA](https://www.suninternational.com/gha)