Government, private sector to tackle tourism seasonality in Cape Town

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The City of Cape Town and Provincial Government along with its various agencies joined private sector stakeholders to discuss the issue and share solutions to this challenge.

'We live in a global village and if we want to be a world-class city then we need to stop being complacent and only enjoying the benefits of tourism in our summer months.

If we can re-position Cape Town as an all-year destination by leveraging Events and Business tourism, our incoming flight numbers, income generated from the tourism industry and jobs in tourism will improve significantly," said Executive Mayor of the City of Cape Town, Patricia de Lille.

In a workshop hosted at Cape Town's Cullinan Hotel, 50 major influencers from government, the private sector and outside industry partners joined forces to develop a collective strategy and framework involving all parties in the tourism field. Broad agreement was reached on the need for the city to examine its positioning with respect to a clear and authentic narrative that is reflective of our diversity as well as markets currently being targeted, in other words, we need to flip the script to depict lesser-known narratives about the city. This is in addition to promoting existing icons and world-renowned destination attributes. It was further agreed to bring about an integrated events calendar for all stakeholders as well to focus on growing organic world-class events with multiple touch points across business and leisure tourism.

Economic Opportunities Minister, Alan Winde, said that integrated information was key to unlocking further growth in the industry: "Tourism is the biggest engine room in our economy, contributing R17 billion each year, and over 200 000 jobs. We need to rev it up by using data and technology better than we do today. I am confident that by working together, and by leveraging events to draw visitors to the region, we can become a 365 destination."

Enver Duminy, CEO of Cape Town Tourism was buoyed by the consensus of the industry to work towards common goals: "The strategies and defined goals agreed today must now be implemented through defined roles and responsibilities. Cape Town Tourism looks forward to driving this process together with our industry partners and government."