Shopping festival to put Joburg on the map

29 Sep 2010

The City of Johannesburg's Department of Economic Development, together with the Mayoral Council are planning to transform Joburg into a world class shopping destination, specifically targeting its SADC neighbours and West, Central and East Africans. Few people are aware that South Africa attracts more than 500 000 African visitors per month, many of whom come here to shop and be entertained.

Shopping festival to put Joburg on the map

"We have the infrastructure, a well established hospitality industry, and a buoyant retail and wholesale trade," notes Jason Ngobeni (ED for Economic Development).

According to Monique Griffith, project leader and director of Sector Support in the Department of Economic Development, "The challenge is to invite these people to come to Joburg, to stay a few days longer and to spend more.

These huge tourism numbers are created without any real marketing effort at all. If the city creates a compelling offer - based on "The world is on your doorstep" and aggressively markets this to its African neighbours, then there is no reason why it cannot attract more people. If the city, including the tourism sector, the hospitality trade, the retail and wholesale trade, collaborate with special offers then these visitors will have no reason not to stay longer and spend more money.

Building on Dubai experience

The city has been planning the Joburg Shopping Festival for some time now. "We have observed how Dubai has consistently been able to attract more than 3.5 million visitors who spend more than US$3 billion (about R21 billion) during its shopping festival. The positive sentiment and our ability to host many visitors during the World Cup merely confirmed the viability of this opportunity," said Ngobeni.

The plans include mobilising the entire city to host "shopping visitors". These visitors will be offered added value hospitality packages, will be encouraged to shop in participating centres and malls (via carefully orchestrated promotions). These promotions will be tailored to the shopper's needs, so that the wealthy are invited to shop for luxury goods, the traders invited to the wholesale trade and so on.