New magazine touches down with the tourists

The Other Guide to Cape Town has an exclusive deal with Cape Town International Airport to distribute a free magazine direct to tourists as they touch down in the arrivals' halls.

Cape Town currently gets over 5 million tourists per year (domestic and international) but this ever-growing market has been largely underserved thus far by South Africa's magazine market. Various titles have flirted with the tourist sector, says The Other Guide editor Hugo Ripley, but none so far very effectively. "We believe that this type of information has to be distributed for free, other competitor titles of ours have gone the cover price route, but you can't honestly expect tourists to go down to CNA and spend R20 for this kind of information."

"We will be putting a free guide magazine directly into the hands of tourists as they land at the airport," says Ripley.

The Other Guide, in a first for Cape Town, has been granted permission by ACSA to distribute the magazine, through vendors and magazine stalls, inside the airport's two arrivals halls. "The Other Guide will be written and photographed by locals," says Ripley, "we want the best of Cape Town's creative media to portray in full colour and polished prose the astonishing variety of attractions in Africa's southernmost city. Often the guide books only tell half the story. They are rapidly researched, irregulalrly updated and written by overseas writers who don't really know Cape Town."

Mike Wills of Cape Talk, Marcus Prior of Reuters SA and Janet Heard of The Sunday Times will all be regular contributors, while co-editors Ripley and Barry Tyson have both worked many years for Independent Newspapers and for GQ magazine.

"We want to show our visitors not just the obvious tourist attractions," says Ripley. "We want to show them the real-life issues facing Capetonians, we want to show them our history, our townships and highlight the things we southern Africans talk about in bars. Also, tourists often don't want to be constantly reminded they are tourists. We did some market research and found that visitors often bemoan the fact they never get to find out what makes a city tick and what undercurrents drive the people, whether they be political, economic or even sporting."

The launch edition features up-and-coming Good Hope radio DJ Jeannie D on the launch cover and highlights the undoubted major event of next month, The Presidents Cup.

Golf fanatics will be flying to Cape Town from all over the world to see the likes of Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus take on local stars Ernie Els and Retief Goosen. To cap of a big golfing month for Cape Town, Arabella Country Estate will be hosting the Nelson Mandela Invitational. So with this in mind, The Other Guide has kicked off with something of a golf edition!

In other featured events this November, The Other Guide reviews the Red Bull Music Academy, a gathering of the world's up-and-coming DJs, it has a full events listings page with the best of the month's events, a useful map of the city and peninsula and a portfolio of the in vogue restaurants, bars, wine, shops and music in town.

The Other Guide, whose initial print run is 35 000 copies, will also have regular sections on golf, health and well-being, wine routes, shopping, events and up country destinations.

For more information or voucher copies please call Hugo Ripley on 082 961 5199 or on .