Travel website My Destination relaunches portal

My Destination Cape Town's on-the-ground team have been building relationships with local businesses and the Cape Town community. The new site cements its USP of local expertise by showcasing local tips, reviews, events and exclusive offers. As a result, users access the type of information that they rarely find on global travel guide sites, and only get once they arrive in Cape Town.

Since My Destination's earliest days, local expertise has been its mantra. With local, on-the-ground contacts, My Destination is accessible to both local tourists and businesses, with a strong emphasis on direct, personal involvement.

Local expertise is provided

"Traditional travel sites can carry a lot of general information. But that's a commodity," says CEO Neil Waller. "My Destination is more than that - we aim to give users value-add. For us this means providing local expertise and there's only one way to get that and it's with people on the ground. We absolutely pride ourselves in our 'hand-made' approach to each of our destinations, so that we offer the service and knowledge that only local people can provide. Our new site reflects this best."

My Destination's local teams have created 3 000 professional quality videos and industry-leading panoramic virtual tours. These, together with close to 1 100 articles and 250 000 photographs, are all aimed to inspire and inform users who have visited the portal 18 million times in the last year.

Achieving a global reach

"My Destination Cape Town has always been able to achieve a global reach, and now with the launch of the new site and with emphasis on marketing and promotion at a global scale, we are confident that our featured local businesses will be even more successful in attracting both local and international visitors," according to Andrew Thompson, local director of My Destination in Cape Town. "The addition of many new features on the site also means that we are offering a whole host of benefits to local users, unlike anything currently offered on a local level. We are a global brand, whilst still servicing our local audience. We hope that through My Destination Cape Town we are able to showcase everything that the city has to offer on a truly groundbreaking international platform."

My Destination is also increasing its offering by providing users with a variety of online booking options. To offer competitive deals it has partnered up with global providers for accommodation (Hotels Combined), flights (Sky Scanner), Car Rental (CarTrawler) and travel insurance (WorldNomads).