Cape Town Tourism offers visitors a unified face

Previously, six individual local visitor assistance bureaus served the needs of tourists to the CBD, Blaauberg, Oostenberg, South Peninsula, Tygerberg and Helderberg areas of Cape Town. Cape Town Tourism was previously the bureau responsible for the CBD, Waterfront and Atlantic Seaboard.

Cape Town Tourism will work in close partnership with the newly launched Cape Town Routes Unlimited (CTRU), the provincial destination marketing body for tourism.

While CTRU will be responsible for marketing Cape Town and the Western Cape both nationally and internationally, Cape Town Tourism manages tourism and membership services across the Cape Town Metropole and assist visitors once they arrive in the city.

Currently Cape Town Tourism has a network of 17 Visitor Information Centres located throughout the Metropole, partly funded by income generated through sales and membership as well as direct funding from the City of Cape Town channelled through the CTRU.

Mariëtte du Toit, Manager and spokesperson for Cape Town Tourism said, "Our team is dynamic, committed and passionate about this city and we aim to offer the public, our members and visitors alike with a uniform, quality information network.

"Ours will be a more cost effective but slick operation, totally focussed on offering a diverse range of experiences to Cape Town visitors, beyond the traditional tourism mix. In so doing, we'll achieve the happy balance of customer satisfaction while simultaneously spreading the benefits of tourism to a broader base.

"We believe that, working in tandem with our members, CTRU and every Capetonian, our city can and will become the number one tourism destination in the world."

Under the new structure, members of the previously fragmented bureaus will now benefit equally from a unified identity, a well-funded network, with a single information database, offering standardised systems and improved technology.

CTRU CEO Noki Dube said, "Our job at CTRU is to bring in the numbers but Cape Town Tourism's job is to keep them coming back.

"The world has become a global village and the more people travel, the greater their expectations. For us to compete on this stage against the best cities in the world, our service standards and tourism offering needs to be unrivalled in its excellence. Cape Town Tourism's interface with visitors will be crucial in ensuring that their holiday is so exceptional, that before they even get back home, they're already planning their return trips."

Cape Town Tourism's strategic objectives are: