City of Cape Town, Airbnb to collaborate on spreading the benefits of tourism

19 Oct 2017

The City of Cape Town and Airbnb has signed a collaboration agreement to promote the benefits of people-to-people tourism for Cape Town residents and their communities as well as promote Cape Town across the world as a unique travel destination. This is the first collaboration agreement that the hospitality platform has signed with a city in Africa.

Image: Airbnb

Since 2008, hosts on Airbnb have welcomed over 200 million guests in 191 countries. In Cape Town, there are 17,600 active listings on Airbnb and hosts have earned a combined income of R762m over the past 12 months. In the past year, hosts on Airbnb in Cape Town welcomed close to 290,000 visitors, which resulted in an estimated economic boost of R2.4 billion for the city. The typical host in Cape Town earns an additional R43,400 by sharing their home for 32 nights per year.

As part of the collaboration agreement, Airbnb and the City of Cape Town will:

• Join forces to boost the attractiveness of Cape Town and enable Airbnb hosts to become ambassadors of the city.

• Work together to bring community-led tourism to townships and support greater economic and social empowerment.

• Celebrate Cape Town as an ‘Ideas Capital’ by hosting the Africa Travel Summit and bringing together 80 tourism and technology leaders from across the continent.

• Exchange insights and learnings about travel trends and the sharing economy in order to leverage the technology and the Airbnb platform to boost local communities.

Airbnb will especially look to scale its pilot programme from earlier this year - which supported training in hospitality and technology for residents from townships across the Western Cape - to reach more women and youth in underserved communities throughout Cape Town. The City will be invited to advise Airbnb on where to take the programme to ensure alignment with broader municipal priorities including the City’s Organisational Development and Transformation Plan which aims to leverage technology for progress, building integrated communities and enabling greater economic inclusion.

Building a city of opportunity

Executive Mayor Patricia de Lille and Airbnb Global Head of Public Policy and Public Affairs, Chris Lehane, signed the agreement in Cape Town. Airbnb has also committed to investing $1m (R13 million) in community-led tourism projects in Africa, including Cape Town, over the next three years.

Image Supplied

De Lille said: “The City of Cape Town is building an opportunity city that creates an enabling environment for inclusive economic growth and job creation. The shared economy has the ability to welcome more Capetonians into the tourism sector in line with our efforts of building an inclusive city as we welcome more Airbnb guests. Cape Town is a globally competitive destination and we are creating the space for all entrepreneurs to excel.”

Lehane said: “People-to-people travel using Airbnb is bringing tourism benefits to local families and communities, and generates new revenue streams that stay right here in Cape Town. I'm delighted to be working with Cape Town on this pioneering collaboration to help promote the best of this beautiful city and its people to the world. Airbnb has so far partnered with more than 300 governments across the world and while this is our first city collaboration in Africa, we want to work together with everyone to use technology to help spread more benefits across Africa.”