Cape Town Tourism throws weight behind vaccination drive

27 Sep 2021

In a bid to help drive up vaccination numbers so that other countries see the Mother City as safe and open for travel, Cape Town Tourism is partnering with a number of organisations to offer vaccinated individuals access to local attractions at reduced prices.

Source: Pexels

Jobs and businesses at risk

Despite a robust vaccination drive, South Africa remains on the travel ‘red list’ for the UK and several European countries. In South Africa, travel and tourism account for 8.6% of the economy's output and 9.2% of the jobs. As the most visited city in the country, this has hit the Cape Town tourism industry particularly hard.

In response to this and as a way of showing the world that the home of Table Mountain is safe to visit, Cape Town Tourism has partnered with the likes of City of Cape Town, Vodacom, City Sightseeing Cape Town and other businesses to entice people to get vaccinated by offering them discounts.

“We are urgently encouraging as many Capetonians as possible to get vaccinated so that we can save the thousands of jobs and businesses that are at risk. We’re hoping that both Jobs4Jabs and Jabs4Tourism galvanise people into protecting themselves and others against Covid-19. A higher vaccination rate will show the world that Cape Town is capable of hosting visitors from across the globe safely,” said Alderman James Vos, City of Cape Town's mayoral committee member for economic opportunities and asset management.

Enver Duminy, CEO of Cape Town Tourism, added, “Unfortunately, there are South Africans who have vaccination-hesitancy due to ‘fake news’ and misinformation, making those vaccinated vexed with the unvaxed. Purely from a public health perspective, getting as many people in our industry vaccinated as possible is vital.

"It is also crucial that, as an industry, we do what we need to in order to get as many of our team members vaccinated, because the combination of lockdown restrictions and being on all these red lists is dealing major damage to Cape Town’s economy.”

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Carol Hall, managing executive for Vodacom Western Cape Region says: “As a responsible corporate citizen, we would like to add our voice to the many appeals coming from various stakeholders and plead with all South Africans to get vaccinated. The government has gone to great lengths to source vaccines, but reports show that vaccination centres are standing empty and this is very worrisome as it will further delay efforts to revive the local economy which has been hit hardest by Covid.

"Latest research shows that vaccines do save lives and we plead with Capetonians to take the vaccine, contribute to the global fight against Covid-19 pandemic and play a part in the recovery of our economy.”

Celebrities add their voices

Cape Town Tourism has also partnered with some of the city's most-loved celebrities who are adding their voices to the campaign in a series of videos. Local favourites – including the likes of comedians Marc Lottering and Mel Jones, cricket star JP Duminy, radio personalities Tracey Lange and Deon Bing, and musicians Chad Saaiman and Acoustic Element – will share why they chose to be vaccinated and what being protected from the virus means to them.

Hello fam! �� We’re back with our #LoveCapeTown friends - bringing you a series of #ourbestshots! Right on time to honour #WorldTourismDay!https://t.co/RW2OniH1d0

Find out what @marclottering & AE are doing to ‘make things happy again’ as we ramp up vaccinations. #staysafe pic.twitter.com/N3JRh3RkdT
— Love Cape Town (@lovecapetown) September 27, 2021

“The idea behind these videos is to bring hope, inspiration and humour to South Africans in these hard times, but more importantly to place the spotlight on the urgent need to increase vaccination rates to kick-start tourism. By sharing these videos, we will encourage locals to love Cape Town by getting themselves vaccinated,” says Duminy. “These videos will be shared on Love Cape Town’s social media channels over the next month, so look out for them.”