Cape Town Tourism plans reboot to help sustain future of the industry

Cape Town Tourism wants to rethink the idea of doing “business as usual”. It is on a mission to develop a strategy that will be adopted for next 10 years which will form part of its recovery plan.

Cape Town Tourism Board chairperson Brett Hendricks said: “We are not going to focus on the statistics; it’s depressing as is. Covid-19 is a global health crisis that has affected all of us. We have had to deal with the recovery of the drought crisis, crime and the safety of our tourists.

“Our dams are full and we should be thankful that we have managed Covid-19 well, compared to other countries.

“We have had to rethink the future of tourism. Do we continue to invest in the growth of international tourism at the expense of domestic tourism? We want to build a robust strategy for the next 10 years that will include our recovery.”

On Wednesday, Cape Town Tourism hosted its virtual AGM, where it highlighted the challenges the sector faced during the Covid-19 pandemic. It also held discussions about the “new normal” and re-imagined business for the next phase.

Mayco member for economic opportunities and asset management James Vos said: “At the beginning of this pandemic, I established the tourism task team to deal with the effects of the lockdown measures, to develop our bounce-back strategy and to provide input on my bespoke submissions to national government, motivating for the reopening of business and leisure travel to get businesses back to work.”

Vos has shifted his focus to cruise tourism, which has been poised as a significant opportunity for growth pre-Covid-19.

The City is expecting about170000 passengers and 41000 crew members for the 2020/2021 season.

“Certain cruise lines are already fully booked for the 2022/23 season.Here in Cape Town, we can expect cruises to our city to pick up from 2021 and to be restored to 2019 levels within two years,” he said. Cape Town Tourism chief executive Enver Duminy said: “During this crisis my team has been running on adrenalin, and that is not sustainable. But recent months have challenged some of the assumptions about how fast we can move as an organisation. As we prepare for take-off, we need to adapt to technology.”