Cape looks east to tackle global tourism slump(1)
Western Cape Tourism MEC Alan Winde
Awakening global economic giants China and India are sending more and more tourists to Cape Town, a sign that dramatic changes are happening to the Cape’s traditional visitor demographics, experts say.
Tourism authorities have detailed extensive plans to market Cape Town to the world, to help pull the city and province out of a worldwide slump.
The Cape Argus reported last week that many in the Cape’s crucial industry were speaking openly of a “crisis”, because of low occupancy rates in accommodation establishments, and a similar drop in trading across the industry.
But provincial Tourism MEC Alan Winde, Cape Town Tourism head Mariette du Toit Helmbold and Accelerate Cape Town head Guy Lundy have revealed extensive plans to bring more visitors to the Mother City.
Among these are innovative ways of bringing Gautengers to Cape Town, renewed efforts to attract the Cape’s traditional markets in Europe – despite their economic woes – and dramatic increases in the number of tourists from the “new” markets of China, India and Brazil.
Winde said the Western Cape would be promoted at key trade shows in Brazil and Argentina later this year. “If one analyses the statistics for the first quarter in these markets, it is clear the Western Cape is hitting the right target.”
In 2009, there were 26 975 visitors to the province. This increased to 41 532 last year, an increase of 54 percent.
Arrivals from India to the Western Cape grew from 14 960 in 2009 to 19 543 last year, a 30.6 percent increase.
One of the star markets for that period, Brazil, grew from 15 580 visitors in 2009 to 26 340 last year, a 69.1 percent rise.
“CTRU (Cape Town Routes Unlimited) has just completed an 11-day road show in Beijing, Ghaungou, Seoul, Osaka and Tokyo, and the interest in the Western Cape as a destination is huge. The first sign that we are making significant in-roads in this market is the awarding of Cape Town as the Preferred Tourism Attraction for the Chinese in 2011 by the World Broadcasting Union in China, beating attractions like the Great Barrier Reef, Australia, and Paris, France,” Winde said.
“Another key focus area is to boost tourism from the African continent. The West Coast corridor, with its burgeoning oil industry, is fast becoming a source of higher-net worth individuals, and we need to take advantage of that immediately.
“Already, many of our African markets performed well during the first quarter: Botswana grew from 3 390 visitors in 2009 to 7 099 visitors in 2010, an increase of 109.4 percent; Mozambique visitor numbers increased from 57 057 in 2009 to 65 193 in 2010, an increase of 14.3 percent. Zambia visitors numbers increased from 6 031 in 2009 to 6 781 in 2010, a 12.4 percent increase.
“One of our top African source markets, Namibia, took a slight dip of 1.1 percent (from 108 141 in 2009 to 106 906 in 2010).
“CTRU has just completed a highly successful engagement in Angola, where we exhibited our destination’s products. Further engagements with these markets will occur.”
Du Toit Helmbold said Cape Town was officially being branded as “an inspirational, value-for-money destination”.
