Cape Town Tourism, Wesgro, and town of Cape Town have returned from travel trade expo and conference, ITB Berlin, after successful meetings with airlines, the travel trade, media, travel bloggers, and platforms like Facebook and Tripadvisor.
Airlines are reporting a good take-up of flights to Cape Town and additional flights could be made available within the New Year. It’s reported that one in two passengers flying to South Africa involves Cape Town. While SAA has cut direct flights to Cape Town, they’re including the domestic leg of the flight at no additional cost (aside from airport taxes) as an incentive for travelers. The most important issues for airlines are fuel costs, seasonality, and the way to extend business travel bookings.
The travel trade has reported positive growth to Cape Town, particularly from Germany. They’ve identified Cape Town and the Western Cape as best practice examples of responsible tourism and agents might be sent to town this year for a pragmatic application segment as portion of a course at a brand new academy centered around responsible tourism.
ITB Berlin is thought of as a trend barometer for the international travel industry. The trends reported on at ITB which are most relevant to South Africa include:
– an increased need for personalisation and consumer-mindedness with travelers demanding center place within the planning and purchasing in their next trip.
– a surge in last-minute, impulse driven bookings; shorter stays; and more frequent trips towards home are forcing the industry to become more flexible, put money into more digital marketing and communication solutions, and review booking and cancellation policies.
– a dramatic increase within the use of mobile within the travel and tourism industries, with 75% of the world’s population now accessing a cellular phone (adults now spend more media time on mobile than newspapers and magazines combined).
– travelers hunger for community and need to become involved with causes larger than themselves – conducting more meaningful conversations and relationships.
– new world travelers have become younger – so while a massive percentage of Cape Town’s visitors from traditional source markets are of the child-boomer generation (ages 49-65) tourism products might want to cater for younger travelers from growing new source markets in addition an aging key source market.
– China is now third at the list of outbound tourism spenders and is on pace to rank prior to the u. s. for the primary time in history with nearly $100 billion in tourism spending. Substantial growth in outbound tourism is predicted from Russia and Brazil – currently ranked seventh and ninth, respectively – when it comes to outbound tourism. Helping fuel the emergence of those new players is the price in their respective currencies. In the course of the next five years, emerging world currencies may be trending up while america dollar and the British pound sterling will post only moderate growth. The euro, however, is probably going to struggle and will even weaken.
– continuous innovation must become portion of the essential DNA of the destinations and tourism companies so one can ultimately survive and taking risks is fundamental to staying prior to the contest.
Speaking after her return, Cape Town Tourism CEO, Mariette du Toit-Helmbold said: “Cape Town needs to be future-fit and globally minded, keeping the shopper central to our planning and marketing to make sure our relevance and effectiveness in a global that has changed forever. We have to build on our reputation as a destination that’s responsible, sustainable, and gives non-generic, authentic people-centered experiences. Whilst technology is changing the face of tourism and the way visitors engage with information, book, and travel – there’s a growing necessity to balance technology with genuine human interaction, in order for we don’t lose touch with tourism’s most valuable resource – people.”
Du Toit-Helmbold was a keynote speaker on the 10th ITB Convention, speaking on both Cape Town Tourism’s digital journey and Cape Town’s passage towards greater sustainability through responsible tourism practices.
Councillor Grant Pascoe, the City’s mayoral committee member for Tourism, Events and Marketing, said the City’s Responsible Tourism Pilot Project was just the beginning of Cape Town’s journey towards an inclusive tourism offering. Sustainable growth in tourism must remain firmly at the agenda.
Councillor Pascoe said the town of Cape Town visited the international travel show to realize insight into further developing the destination’s natural draw-cards.
“Cape Town is placed to milk the world’s most lucrative and fastest-growing travel markets. We visited ITB to gather global knowledge to steer our strategies and spot how our competitors are positioning themselves,” said Councillor Pascoe.
Pascoe said key areas with potential for Cape Town were Muslim travel, youth travel, and sports tourism.
“The global Muslim travel market is worth US$126 billion. The foremost factors for this market is Halaal food and access to prayer facilities, which can be commonplace in Cape Town.
“For sports tourism, we host most of the world’s biggest exercises. With our infrastructure, Cape Town’s facilities can be utilized as training grounds for multiple sporting disciplines.”
