Television series to show off attractions of three SA cities

Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg, in collaboration with South African Tourism, have negotiated a series of programmes with Discovery Channel and National Geographic to publicise the attractions in the three cities to world audiences.

The aim is to boost tourism to the entire country as part of a joint marketing campaign agreed last year.

Mariette du Toit-Helmbold, the chief executive of Cape Town Tourism, told the annual general meeting of the city's tourism promotion agency yesterday that the programmes, which were "aimed at showcasing the liveability of our cities and generating a greater demand for South Africa among the world's urban travellers", would be screened in all key traditional and new markets over a nine-month period.

Du Toit-Helmbold said tourism was a leading business sector for the Western Cape, contributing an estimated R14 billion a year to Cape Town's economy and employing more than 298 000 people. This gave the city "a competitive advantage over other cities, driving economic growth alongside other business sectors like agriculture, the knowledge economy and creative sector".

The city still relied on traditional markets, in Europe and North America, for at least 80 percent of arrivals and revenue "but these are the markets most affected by the global financial crisis".

In partnership with the SAA and SA Tourism, it was developing a new global marketing campaign.

"In three weeks' time we will launch Cape Town's new global campaign to media and trade at the World Travel Market in London."

It was also "partnering with international airlines and our local industry to put together packages to Cape Town to convert demand into business".

"Global best practice shows that the demand problem will be addressed if we retain most of our existing successful initiatives, but overlay them on a compelling global marketing and communications campaign that takes Cape Town to the world in a bold and comprehensive manner.

"The plan and campaign is designed to complement the city and region's broader economic strategy and align with the mandate of the soon to be established economic development partnership."

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