City sets to work establishing South to South travel and trade corridor with Brazil

The City’s Mayoral Committee Member for Economic Growth, Alderman James Vos, and Enver Duminy CEO of the City’s official Destination Marketing Organisation, Cape Town Tourism (CTT), embarked on a mission to Brazil this week to establish a South to South trade and travel corridor. Read more below:

The trip included meetings with destination marketing organisations (DMOs), airline executives, and local government counterparts in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.

‘Brazil is South Africa’s biggest trading partner in Latin America and in terms of tourism, we received approximately 77 000 Brazilian tourist arrivals in 2019, a 9,5% rise over the previous year. There is scope to firm up our relations to boost trade and bring more South American tourists to the Cape,’ said Alderman Vos.

The first leg of the mission saw Alderman Vos and Duminy meet with officials from the Rio de Janeiro municipal government as well as their official tourism body.

‘The Cities of Cape Town and Rio signed a sister city agreement in 2011 focusing on economic and social growth. Our meetings in Rio give us the chance to take stock and analyse how our City governments can realise the full potential of our agreement,’ said Alderman Vos.

The team then headed to São Paulo where they attended the World Travel Market Latin America and where Alderman Vos and Duminy engaged with airline executives, tourism operators, and investment promotion agencies to position Cape Town as a city of choice for visiting, working, and investing.

‘At the moment, there is still no direct flight between any cities in South America and Cape Town. As such, one of the highlights of this trip was our meetings with airlines in Brazil to make a case for them to fly directly to Cape Town. Establishing a direct flight between the Mother City and key source markets in Brazil and surrounding countries will have a noticeable effect on travel between our regions and imports and exports,’ said Alderman Vos.

Duminy added that building meaningful relationships with destination marketing bodies in Brazil is a critical means of creating collaborative, knowledge-sharing ecosystems.

‘DMOs play such a pivotal part in understanding and marketing a destination. We’re excited to deepen our friendships with our peers in Latin America, share innovative ways of working, and investigate new means to market ourselves as the destination of choice for Brazilian travellers. We share so many similarities and goals. There’s a lot of understanding and empathy between our nations, which presents significant opportunity,’ said Duminy.

They also sat down with São Paulo’s Municipal Secretary of International Affairs, Marta Suplicy, to discuss trade opportunities. Alderman Vos then met with the executive team at Apex Brazil, the main investment promotion body for Brazil.

‘To boost jobs, trade, inbound tourism, and ultimately grow Cape Town’s economy, we must seek out opportunity in markets that are in some respects, still untapped. This mission is all about strengthening partnerships to drive supply and demand for the benefit of Cape Town’s businesses, industries, and economy,’ said Alderman Vos.