Northern Cape - it's real

Bizcommunity.com was among the media contingent that travelled to Kimberley and surrounding areas as part of the Tourism Month celebrations and took the opportunity to assess and analyse the full impact of the province's rebranding - a process that cost just under R2 million.

Fed-up with the negative perception that the Northern Cape had nothing to offer and is a place ‘far away from the real world', tourism authorities two years ago embarked on the process of rebranding the province, to bring it in line with its ‘real touristic identity'.

Moira Marais-Martin, chairperson of Northern Cape Tourism Board, told Bizcommunity.com: “The rebranding process has taken our province to greater heights and increased our market share by 1%.”

Criticism refuted

She rejected the notion that Northern Cape has nothing to offer to potential visitors and refuted the criticism that the province has not been marketed as effectively as possible, resulting in visitors shying away.

She said, “We are not trying to compete against ‘flashy' provinces such as Gauteng, KZN or Western Cape, but we are trying to do things in our own way with the little resources we have, taking into account of the realness of nature, multicultural history and hospitality we can offer. Also, the fact that the province is under-populated [just around 1.3 million] poses a serious challenge for tourism.

“But you have to invest in the brand if you want people to start taking notice of it and buy it. The old brand did not really reflect what the Northern Cape is all about but our new brand has class and elegance.

“If we were not doing an effective marketing campaign, we would not have increased our market share.

“I am not sure if there is any province that has achieved that in these economic hard times, but the one million (and plus) hits we are getting as response from our newly designed website reveals that we are getting there.”

Rebranding makes a ‘huge difference'

Selling the brand Northern Cape, home of the Big Hole, to tourists and other potential visitors has always been a mammoth task for the province's tourism authorities due to challenges ranging from access (few flights) to insufficient marketing resources and ineffective brand impact.

Peter M'Kuchane, GM for Northern Cape Tourism Authority, said: “We have had a few difficulties here and there, but the rebranding process has made a huge difference in terms of how the province is now perceived as a tourism destination.”

Tourism contributes about 8% of SA's gross domestic product (GDP) and creates about one million jobs both directly and indirectly. Quite a significant number of SA provinces have flexed their marketing and branding muscles in the past three years or so with the help of SA Tourism and other corporates, resulting in the increase of 17% in domestic tourism revenues.

Marais-Martin said the Northern Cape has teamed up with Standard Bank and has other major projects in the pipeline.

Speaking in Kimberley on Tuesday, deputy minister of Tourism Tokozile Xasa said initiatives such as the Sho't Left campaign needs to be intensely marketed in order to grow and sustain a robust domestic travel in SA.

Visit www.northerncape.org.za for more information.