Cape Town goes global

Cape Town Routes Unlimited (CTRU), the official tourism marketing organisation for Cape Town and the Western Cape, has become the first city and provincial tourism authority in Africa to adopt a global platform for its tourism website.

CTRU has transformed its website with a new system that links the websites of the regional and local tourism authorities to a centrally updatable database. The new protocol allows all tourism organisations to update their own websites. The changes are then automatically reflected in the domain www.tourismcapetown.co.za, the Cape Town & Western Cape destination website.

Over the past 18 months, the City of Cape Town and the Provincial Government of the Western Cape, have invested R3 million in a major development and training programme associated with the websites for 68 towns and the six regions throughout the Western Cape.

Says Noki Dube, CEO of CTRU: "Having a website in itself is not unique, what is unique, is that our website is the first provincial tourism website to adopt a global tourism platform for information management and provides a cutting-edge booking and enquiry system. It also represents our tangible shift from marketing individual tourism products to creating an experience destination that potential tourists can identify with and which supports the Cape Town Routes Unlimited's strategic objectives for Tourism.".

CTRU have chosen to partner with Tiscover, one of the largest global online destination marketing portals. With more than 35 million page views in December 2004 alone, Tiscover is supported by their local partner, Software Colors.

"As part of our ongoing commitment to empowering tourism role-players and stakeholders throughout the province, we have invited a small group of accommodation owners to test the workability of our on-line booking facility."