City and Cape Town International Airport ready to welcome tourists

STATEMENT BY THE CITY’S MAYORAL COMMITTEE MEMBER FOR ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITIES AND ASSET MANAGEMENT, ALDERMAN JAMES VOS

This week I visited the Cape Town International Airport to unveil the City of Cape Town’s Destination Marketing branding. I am happy to confirm that following this successful visit, the City will receive more space at the airport for branding.

Our internationally acclaimed airport is a key feature in our travel and tourism offer and the gateway to our city. Branding at our airport is key to communicate with our locals and visitors. This wonderful collaboration will ensure that we speak to our target markets through effective branding and marketing.

The branding speaks to the Six Pillar strategy, which is our strategic marketing and communications approach to reimagine and reignite visitor demand to Visit, Live, Work, Study, Play & Invest in Cape Town. This strategy allows us to provide a rich and holistic view of all the city has to offer across these six themes.

The City’s ‘For the Love Of’ campaign on safety protocols and responsible behaviour to protect both visitors and locals was also clear throughout the airport and speaks to our readiness to welcome back tourists safely.

I also had the opportunity to welcome back the Cape Town Tourism staff at the newly reopened Visitors Information Centre in the airport.

To promote our destination, the City of Cape Town provides funding to our official destination marketing organisation, Cape Town Tourism. They do a fantastic job of running many Visitors Information Centres around the city and provide our tourists with a wealth of information on what to do in Cape Town.

While our branding is in place and impressive, it means less if our international borders do not open as soon as is responsibly possible. I continue to engage with my national counterparts to lobby for and request key information on when international travel will be reopened.

A strong focus for my department going forward and part of our recovery strategy is to ensure growth in arrivals of visitors so we stimulate supply and demand for the tourism and related industries.

By implementing key strategies and maintaining the high levels of safety protocols I saw at the airport and on my tourism sector visits, I am confident that we are ready to welcome back our domestic and international tourists.