The tourism industry has been brought to its knees by the coronavirus. What the future will look like is unknown at this point but the City of Cape Town have taken a bold step to reimagine it.
The City’s Mayoral Committee Member for Economic Opportunities and Asset Management, Alderman James Vos, joined by the CEO of Cape Town Tourism, Enver Duminy, held a webinar highlighting the plans to help the tourism industry on the road to readiness and recovery.
The plans include partnering with industry specialists to help members breathe life back into our tourism industry, helping them with their recovery planning, adapting business focus, a Business Incubation Programme as well as targeted industry sessions, recovery training, dedicated business consultant sessions and partnership onboarding.
The COVID-19 crisis has certainly made its presence felt on Cape Town’s tourism industry. The City of Cape Town and the official Destination Marketing Organisation, Cape Town Tourism (CTT), have formulated plans, embracing technology and using research as a strategic guide to plot a sustainable future for this vital and vibrant sector.
Tourism is and will remain a key industry in the City and it is central to economic recovery. According to the latest available statistics from Statistics South Africa, tourism added roughly R18 billion to the local economy and directly supported just over 113 000 jobs in 2018, showing just how critical this sector is for Cape Town and its residents.
To face this challenge head-on, the Tourism Task Team was established to manage and co-ordinate the interventions needed to minimise the devastating effect that COVID-19 has on the tourism industry.
More importantly, this team has worked on recovery strategies that will reshape and re-conceptualise tourism post COVID-19. Now, and in the future, there is an opportunity to rebuild our industry not just to what it was before, but into something even better. This requires bold and brave new steps to drive the industry forward.
There are three phases in the City’s COVID-19 tourism action plan, including Containment, Adjustment and Recovery.
Containment phase
To ensure that the industry has access to credible information, a communications plan was rolled out as of 1 March 2020. This includes daily industry e-mailers providing the most up-to-date information while ensuring our destination remains top-of-mind.
CTT’s website, www.capetown.travel [1], has become the home of information on COVID-19 for visitors, and offers a 24-hour Live Chat as well as various educational resources.
They are also sharing tips and messages of hope to potential visitors as well as industry partners and members. They launched ‘A Survivalists Guide to the 21-day Lockdown’ – in which proud Capetonian celebs look at the lighter side of lockdown, and ‘Travel from your Couch’ which enables virtual travel experiences from the comfort of your home.
Adjustment Phase
The adjustment phase entails gathering solid research and data to best inform the plans going forward. The Tourism Task Team are conducting research to understand the current market trends, new health requirements, client satisfaction shifts, the market-readiness of Cape Town, new target markets as well as possible changes to products and demands. They specially want to understand the behavioral changes resulting from the impact of COVID-19 in order to continue to globally position Cape Town as the premier city to visit, live, work, study, play and invest. This will also inform what kind of support will be the most effective.
They have launched an exciting ‘Seeing is believing’ campaign which involves digital interviews in which tourism businesses discuss how COVID-19 has effected them but also how they are adapting to the new normal.
The Adjustment Phase also includes international tourism trade training, virtual marketing initiatives and Online Travel Training.
They have adapted their Visitor Information Centre services by offering visitors an online and 24-hour live chat capability. For visitors who are in-destination, support is available, including emergency support.
It is very encouraging to see that corporates are providing support to the tourism sector during this difficult time. This support includes letters of endorsement and daily industry e-mailers. A Small Business Survival Toolkit and checklist has been developed and contains the essentials to help get businesses back to work safely as soon as they are allowed to do so.
Recovery phase
CTT is partnering with industry specialists to help members with their recovery planning. This includes adapting business focus, a Business Incubation Programme as well as targeted industry sessions, recovery training, dedicated business consultant sessions, and partnership onboarding.
Recovery will happen and they are resolute that Cape Town will be ready to welcome back her tourists. Key to the recovery plans are the campaigns that will be rolled out to entice tourists back to the Mother City.
The City and CTT will partner with industry specialists to breathe life back into the tourism industry and, equally as important, the sectors that underpin the tourism industry, such as food and beverage, accommodation, transportation, events as well as goods and services.
‘It is critical that we take advantage of the opportunity that we now have to reimagine the future of tourism in Cape Town,’ they said.
The City will focus on a Responsible Tourism approach as they must ensure economic growth that will create job creation and social upliftment of our people through tourism. A key part of the recovery will also include the launch of a Tourism Schools Programme to improve the understanding of the ‘new normal’ by our future leaders and Tourism Entrepreneurs.
The recovery plans include investing in airport branding in key source markets so that Cape Town is top of mind when domestic and international travel commences.
They will tailor targeted messaging to visit Cape Town to international markets and will soon launch an exciting and easy-to-use SMART CITY app.
As a City government, the Finance Directorate recently confirmed City relief measures available to this sector. Guest houses and certain B&B’s now have the option of applying to change their property classification, due to the impact of COVID-19, which could cut rates bills in half in some cases.
For more information on this or to apply to reclassify your property category, please email: [email protected]
They will work closely with communities and the industry in preparing to welcome domestic and international visitors back to Cape Town. Marketing efforts will then be ramped up to promote the destination’s brand promise to a local and global audience.
The recently launched and award winning ‘We are worth waiting for!’ campaign encapsulates everything this beautiful, diverse and exciting city has to offer. There is a reason Cape Town has been voted the best city in the world seven times in a row. It has so much to offer no matter what local and international tourists are looking for and want to remind potential visitors why they love Cape Town so much.
Image: Pixabay
