City to inspire travellers to make Cape Town their next stop

The City will be showcasing Cape Town’s beauty to approximately half a million passengers, every month, at the busy OR Tambo International Airport. The new destination branding campaign that takes-off from 1 December 2019 will inspire and encourage travellers to ‘Visit Cape Town’. Read more below:

This initiative forms part of the City’s Place Marketing strategy, which seeks to position Cape Town as the premier destination in Africa to visit, live, work, study, play and invest.

For the last three years, the City has branded walkways in the international arrivals and departures terminals at Cape Town International Airport, creating a ‘sense of place’ and showcasing Cape Town’s destination offering to thousands of passengers a day.

Creating a sense of place at airports is a popular concept globally as airports are the natural gateways and a first point of contact with the local destination for the majority of visitors. Showcasing the local essence through impactful imagery and messaging creates a feeling of physical and social connection with the destination.

‘Securing space to promote Cape Town at the OR Tambo International Airport is a huge feat. We are strategically placing Cape Town in front of nearly half a million passengers per month in a competitor city. Research shows that airports offer a transitory, captive audience seeking inspiration and escapism. We believe that our striking imagery and call to action offers just that – inspiration and an invite to visit Cape Town,’ said Alderman James Vos, the City’s Mayoral Committee Member for Economic Opportunities and Asset Management.

The City is currently also exploring branding opportunities in the rest of Africa and key source markets in Europe and the United States through city-to-city media exchanges and leveraging partnerships.

‘This new campaign is in preparation for driving the message to visit, live, work, study, play and invest in Cape Town, which is anticipated to kick-off in the second quarter of 2020,’ said Alderman Vos.

The branding campaign at OR Tambo International, driven by the City’s Place Marketing team, will run for five months from 1 December 2019 to 30 April 2020.

Place Marketing, located in the City’s Enterprise and Investment Department, shines the international spotlight on the city’s successes, its people, places and the region’s limitless opportunities to help stimulate long-term economic growth for residents. The branch comprises of three units: Destination Marketing, Investment Promotion and Tourism Development.

The team has developed a suite of promotional material, including videos, brochures and a USB Toolkit which position Cape Town as a preferred destination for travel, events and investment. In 2018, Place Marketing launched the City’s first digital film and image library on the Barberstock platform. The online vault contains over 1 000 images and videos available for download at no cost to anyone promoting Cape Town as the premier city to visit, live, work, study, play and invest. Users have to register for free access at www.barberstock.com/capetown. View the Barberstock promotional teaser here.

Alderman Vos added that he was pleased to announce that City of Cape Town’s Draft Tourism Development Framework (TDF) was recently adopted by Council recently.

Cape Town has a vast cultural and heritage diversity and this gives us the opportunity to take a new immersive approach to cultural tourism.

‘I have been working with my team on this exciting framework and my immediate priority is to ensure the efficient implementation of the TDF to boost cultural experiences and help diversify tourism products. This will translate into more involvement from specific communities who will benefit economically from their participation.

‘We are fully committed to the tourism sector and will invest in programmes and initiatives that foster economic growth in this industry. I would like to acknowledge the sterling work of the Place Marketing team in putting together this campaign,’ added Alderman Vos.