South African hotels and casino operator Tsogo Sun reported a 20 percent rise in first-half profit on Thursday, helped by an acquisition that offset the slow revenue from gambling and leisure travel.

Tsogo Sun, in which SABMiller and Hosken Consolidated Investments each have a nearly 40 percent stake, said headline EPS totalled 81.3 cents in the six months to end-September compared with 68 cents a year earlier.

Headline earnings are the main profit measure in South Africa and strip out certain one-off items, Reuters reports.

Tsogo Sun and smaller rival Sun International, hotels are struggling to fill up rooms as the government and corporates spend guardedly due to weak economic growth prospects while high household debt levels have made consumers wary of gambling and leisure travel.

In a bid to offset slowing growth at home, Tsogo Sun paid 700 million rand ($70 million) earlier this year to buy a hotel in Nigeria and a further 300 million rand to expand its Mozambican hotel.

South Africa cut its growth expectations for this year to 2.1 percent from 2.7 percent as labour strikes, slower consumer spending and power constraints weigh on the continent’s biggest economy.

Source: Business Day