Cape Town uses social media to promote tourism

As tourism rapidly grew so did the ability to research, book and share the travel experience, often in real time, further feeding a global wildfire of desire to travel.

Cape Town Tourism earmarked digital marketing as a key area for development prior to the 2010 FIFA World Cup, overhauling its website and social media sites to manage the spike in curiosity. Since June 2011 the Cape Town Tourism website has seen a total of one million unique visitors and the official Cape Town Tourism Facebook fan page has grown to over 250 000 fans, whilst regular tweets and blogs have earned Cape Town Tourism a place as one of the top 25 most influential tourist boards in 2011.

Launching a digital Facebook campaign

An integrated marketing campaign with National Geographic, launched earlier this year, sees Cape Town and Durban feature across National Geographic platforms for a period of fourteen months between April 2012 and June 2013. This will include a one hour documentary about the two cities, a series of TV vignettes focused on the unique sounds of each city, an array of international National Geographic magazine editorial, online editorial on National Geographic's website, as well as a social media and digital campaign championed by Digital Nomad, Andrew Evans.

In addition, in September 2012, Cape Town Tourism will be launching a digital Facebook campaign which will speak to the rapidly growing social media market and which will connect more would-be travellers than ever to Cape Town. Cape Town Tourism will also be collaborating with four top international travel bloggers on an international destination marketing campaign during August.

Digital media have changed travel

The potential for e-commerce aside, digital platforms represent massive potential for marketing at a fraction of the cost of a global television or print campaign. It's with a smart-spend attitude that Cape Town Tourism has chosen to invest significantly in the digital media platform to promote its "You Don't Need a Holiday, You Need Cape Town" campaign.

Says Cape Town Tourism CEO, Mariëtte du Toit-Helmbold: "Digital media and social platforms are truly changing travel - and the behaviour of travellers - as they dream, experience and share. Cape Town provides us with an endless supply of alluring, interesting and authentic material, which we use on our own platforms and through strategic alliances such as the one we recently undertook with National Geographic's Digital Nomad, Andrew Evans. It is through these windows that people are starting to see Cape Town, digital windows that are immediate, relevant and honest."