Cape Town’s tourism season buoyant despite economic woes
10. Dec, 2008
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Mother City – The United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) reports indicate that global economic turmoil has resulted in declines throughout the world travel market. Despite these trends, Cape Town’s tourism season remains intact with some regions reporting good occupancy levels for the season ahead.
The latest Cape Town Tourism’s dipstick research shows that there is a slight decline in visitors, in comparison to the previous year this time, to the Northern (Blaauwberg and Northern Suburbs) and Eastern (Somerset West, False Bay coast) regions of the Cape Metropole. The South (Cape Point to Strandfontein) is holding steady with last year. The same is true of the Central areas (Atlantic Seaboard, V&A Waterfront and City) with some accommodation establishments in the CBD reporting very good occupancies and excellent return visit numbers.
Key attractions like the Table Mountain Aerial Cableway Company and the V&A Waterfront are confident that they will experience the same influx of visitors as in prior years. ‘Our locals have been particularly pleased with the fact that we have extended our half price sunset special over four months. This attracted over four-thousand South Africans who have made use of the service in November’, said Sabine Lehmann, CEO Table Mountain Aerial Cableway Company. In December last year, 100 000 visitors enjoyed a trip up to Table Mountain on the Cableway and the V&A Waterfront had 2 million visits in the same period. ‘The V&A Waterfront is still very popular amongst tourists and local visitors regardless of the economic situation. The weakness of the South African rand at the moment encourages international visitors to spend more’ says Maureen Thomson, Executive Marketing Manager and Media Spokesperson for the V&A Waterfront.
An increase in Cruise Liner ships is also anticipated, with 46 ships docking in Cape Town this high season alone. Cruise Liner packages are increasingly popular with both domestic and international travellers. Cape Town Tourism, in partnership with the City of Cape Town and key stakeholders, is working on improving Cape Town’s position as a Cruise Liner tourism destination.
A recent (November 2008) UK Telegraph poll cited Cape Town as their readers’ Favourite World City. Of the 25 000 readers polled, a clear preference emerged for destinations where the pound had strength against the local destination currency. The need for assured value also meant that many readers were likely to return to destinations they already know, good news for Cape Town; a long-time favourite with British visitors.
Due to the weakness of the rand, local holiday-makers are more likely to forgo their overseas plans in favour of a South African holiday, particularly after a significant drop in the petrol price brings some relief.
Cape Town Tourism’s CEO, Mariëtte du-Toit Helmbold, points out that the global money squeeze has led to a strong international trend towards last-minute travel making visitor predictions more difficult this season. Du-Toit Helmbold advises; “Potential visitors are looking for value, authenticity and specific specials that will suit their lifestyle choices. We are assisting our members in creating the kind of packages that we know these visitors are looking for. Travellers are increasingly web-minded so we are ensuring that our members’ last-minute specials and value-add propositions will be easy to find on our new-look website www.capetown.travel as of the 15 December as part of our new e-marketing campaign.”
Cape Town Tourism continues to work with the industry and stakeholders like Cape Town Routes Unlimited to market destination Cape Town. This provides a platform for joint marketing, alignment and partnership. Cape Town Tourism is focusing on eMarketing, PR and Guest Relations, citizen mobilisation and joint marketing agreements with the industry and trade to position Cape Town as one the world’s most iconic business and leisure destinations.
Of no less significance, is the arrival of citizen journalism, whereby the people market their own experiences of the cities they live in and visit. This year, Cape Town Tourism’s visitor welcome campaign is called Love Summer, Love Cape Town. The campaign focuses on highlighting the many incredible summer experiences on offer in the Mother City – from entertainment, things to do for families, special deals, safety tips, activities and more. To encourage the people of Cape Town to participate in welcoming visitors, the public is being invited to create short video clips of their warmest “Welcome to Cape Town” messages for entry into the Welcome to Cape Town Competition.
Visit http://www.youtube.com/group/WelcomeToCapeTown , the official You Tube site for entries. From the 15 December 2008, the public can start visiting www.capetown.travel, to view all the submissions and vote for the best entries. The entrants with the most popular clips, as chosen by the voting public, stand to win great prizes.
My name is Muzi Mohale a full-time travel blogger, your host at Travelwires.com responsible for all editorial on this blog. I blog about the travel and tourism industry in Africa. Apart from blogging about tourism, I also run 
I’m glad I read on after reading another article on your website about the decrease in international visitors to South Africa, it’s good to see that at least the Western Cape is not doing too badly all things considered.