Tuesday, May 11, 2010

15% by 2015 - Lets go!

This is an extract of the speech that Minister Winde gave at the Tourism Indaba 2010:

I am honoured to address you on this, the 32nd day before the kick-off of the 2010 FIFA World Cup™.

With so little time left, I am pleased to see that infrastructure plans are being wrapped up; our airport, which recently won an award for being the best airport in Africa, is ready and South Africans across the country are gearing up to show our tourists that we have the most spirit of any country to host the Cup thus far.

Recent statistics released by SA Tourism confirmed that while the recession caused a global drop in tourism markets of 4% last year, tourism to Africa bucked the trend and grew by nearly 4%. Tourism to South Africa contributed over R189 billion to our GDP.

Notwithstanding these achievements, the Western Cape tourism industry has been through a rather rocky period. Last year June, we put together a task team consisting of City and Province representatives, who began to pave the way forward for a brand new, politically immune destination marketing model that we believe will pave the way forward for tourism marketing in South Africa. The emphasis of this plan was on finding new ways to foster cooperation and market ourselves with our collective resources. I am pleased to deliver this plan to you today.

Section 4A of the Constitution lists tourism as a functional area of concurrent national and provincial competence. Schedule 4B of the Constitution identifies local tourism as a local government functional area.

Our major achievements are:
· A single brand encompassing city, regional and provincial destinations;
· A single tourism marketing strategy, which demonstrates seamless coordination among SA Tourism, the Province and Regional and Local Tourism Organisations, with the business plans of the organisations aligned to deliver against this single Western Cape Tourism Marketing Strategy.
· A Single Destination Marketing Organisation at provincial level for tourism marketing and promotion, with clearly defined roles, actions, deliverables and measures.

To support the above, the destination marketing organisation will receive a new name and a new, more representative 16 seat board, made up of a CEO, Province and City ex officios, 1 seat for the DMO, 1 for the Cape Metropole, 5 for the district municipalities, and 6 public representatives with tourism qualifications and background.

We are currently in the process of finalising a Memorandum of Agreement between the Provincial Government and the City of Cape Town. This will be followed by a Service Level Agreement between the City of Cape Town and Cape Town Routes Unlimited for the 2010/2011 financial year. We need similar processes to take place with the five District Municipalities.

After such time, together we will appoint an independent team to develop the Western Cape Tourism Marketing Strategy for the destination.

I would like to extend my thanks to the Western Cape tourism industry and the team at CTRU, who have worked very hard over the past five years and have made significant accomplishments. CTRU has represented the destination at 48 international tourism consumer and trade shows and engaged some 8 500 tour operators directly. It has managed to secure 24 Joint Marketing Agreements to the value of R836 million on these shows, adding significant value to the local industry.

It has also supported 367 city and provincial events which have boosted the attractiveness of our location to visitors. These projects have also supported local economic development.

CTRU’s Conventions Bureau has prepared and submitted 83 bids to host conferences in the Western Cape. It won 48 bids, mostly (95%) for the CTICC. Collectively, these bids had a conservatively stated economic impact of R950 million on the Western Cape economy.

1 comment:

  1. All nicely said but a bit further away from Cape Town we are suffering due to the incompetence of some of your employees.
    Herewith an extract of the e-mail we Recently sent to you (and no reply from your side either...):
    "Since 2006 we are battling with the attitude of representives of the Department of Economical Development & Tourism and we are now getting very tired of it.
    Below you see the latest correspondence.
    Add to this that we had in the past four years several appointments at the department in Cape Town that were cancelled on the spot (person not there...), etc., etc.
    Can you please activate the persons responsible to perform a better job?

    We should also like to find out how to proceed further with the application as mentioned in the correspondence below.

    Thanks.

    Kind regards,

    Herman van Bon
    Yvonne de Wit



    To: John Ndhlovu
    Sent: Wednesday, November 10, 2010 7:55 AM
    Subject: Update on NDT/EPWP Project Proposal Submissions


    Dear John,

    We very much regret your decision.

    We sincerely have the idea that the Dep. of Ec. Dev. & Tourism did not go thoroughly through our application. Should this been done than they would have noticed that Tourism is the most important aspect within the application (new accommodation and the existing gardens that already attracts many overseas visitors). The nursery part that you mention in your rejection is only a small part within the whole concept and not emphasized in the application. Also once needed funding is received to make needed investments and bridging income gap first 1-2 yrs the project is sustainable on the long run. A cashflow (compiled by Red Door) for 5 yrs was also submitted as was a transparent list of investments. Attached are application in EPWP-format plus our BP.

    We also regret that despite confirmation the representive of your department (Khaya Mahanjana) did not engage in the interdepartmental meeting of 31 August here at Soekershof. Should he have done this I'm pretty sure that the outcome as stated below would have been different."

    Summary: The attitude of your department (at least some representives) is a defamation of our intentions. Sorry (nothing personal).

    ReplyDelete