NEWS RELEASE                                                                                               22 August 2002

CITY INTEGRATES SEVEN TOURISM BODIES

In order to exploit its status as a favoured tourist destination, the City of Cape Town is merging all seven tourism bureaus and the regional tourism organisation, the Cape Metro Tourism Board in the Peninsula into a single entity with a strong brand with a common logo and a co-ordinated marketing strategy.

 In addition the new branding for the city and the province will be unveiled soon.

This basic but important step ties in with the Joint Marketing Initiative (JMI), a joint undertaking between the City of Cape Town and Provincial Administration of the Western Cape to market Cape Town and the Western Cape as a single entity internationally.

While Visitor Information Centres will remain open throughout the city, they will be amalgamated into a single tourism body with the common strategic objective of increasing tourism throughout the city and the province.

Their role will be to provide Visitor Information Services to both foreign and local visitors and to encourage visitors to see the full spectrum of attractions in the city and the hinterland.

Councillor Kent Morkel, Executive Councillor for Economic Development, Tourism and Property Management, said that the city is perfectly poised to take a much bigger slice of the tourism cake, both nationally and internationally.

“With our matchless natural assets, the growing popularity of niche tours and major events, plus the good service and unbeatable value for money offered in Cape Town, we believe we can be in the top ten worldwide destinations by the year 2010,” he said.

“Through our Community Based Tourism Development Fund, we are also reaching out to all our communities to get involved in tourism, which offers many opportunities and is an ideal industry for the smaller operator,” he added.

At the same time, a greater emphasis is being placed on securing more business from the burgeoning international convention business via the Cape Town International Convention Centre. In the past year, Cape Town has moved up from 52nd to 30th spot as a convention destination, and the completion of the world-class International Convention Centre on the foreshore in 2003 is expected to provide a huge impetus in this competitive market.

With the top five (by visitor numbers) tourism destinations in South Africa all concentrated in the Cape, the City of Cape Town and the tourism industry are optimistic that a bright future lies ahead. Small business people are already seeing abundant opportunities to earn a good living in this fast-growing industry, giving credence to the Cape Town logo “Tourism is Everyone’s Business.”

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