In the next five years, Cape Town wants to attract five million more visitors. What part will you play in that?

It will be a collective and collaborative approach. We need to look at our repositioning as a country. We have always sold South Africa for its ‘big five’ safari experience. As appealing as that might be, safari experiences across the rest of the continent probably exceed what South Africa offers because of urbanisation and its encroachment on the natural space.
For us, it is about acknowledging the shifts in our economy, and how we position ourselves as unique on this continent by combining the safari experience with the urban experience. South African cities hold about 70% of its tourism assets, so it makes sense to do this. We need to understand our competitive set, as cities and as a country, and make sure we agree on our global positioning. We also need to acknowledge what makes us unique.
Cape Town has a good indication of what is going on, as we are the only city that sits on the national board. We have leveraged tourism over the last 15 or 20 years and built the brand of the destination. I have a South African passport, not a Capetonian passport. It’s about succeeding together and sharing the collective resources and funding to have a bigger impact on the world stage.

How can the public and private sectors work together to make the overall offering stronger?

Cape Town is different from other DMOs in that we are not public or private. We are a voluntary member association made up of about 1,300 businesses in tourism. We understand what the consumer wants and we have the products and experience to deliver it. Other DMOs are sometimes hindered by their own policies, but we don’t have that problem. We get funding from local government, which has two seats on our board. The other seats are made up of private sector figures. We have the balance and the backing of all to make sure that the destination succeeds. It’s about providing the right input. Hopefully, we can start paying back to the city’s fiscus or into industry. Our mission has been to move from non-profit to a commercial entity that can contribute in a meaningful way.

“…We’ve added 600,000 more flight seats to our city over the past two years. Airport and hotel expansion plans show growth and the need to accommodate it…”

How does Cape Town see itself?

The perception is that Cape Town is expensive, distant from the market, and perhaps unsafe. We want to address these perceptions and reposition ourselves as a ‘new Cape Town.’ We want to use digital and video content to showcase our hidden gems. We are not looking to make everything seem beautiful. Consumers are smart enough to look past that. We want to be authentic about who we are as a city. We want to include locals in our marketing, with their local pride showing naturally. People will then realise that their old perceptions were skewed and begin to relate more to the real picture.

In the next three to five years, what milestones do you want to reach for Cape Town Tourism?

We want to address the perception of Cape Town being worth visiting only during the summer. We’ve added 600,000 more flight seats to our city over the past two years. Airport and hotel expansion plans show growth and the need to accommodate it.
We’ve gone from technically being insolvent to being one with a million dollar cash reserve. We can use that to invest in other things. We have created a separate company in order to begin doing commercial activities.
I want to have a great team with passionate people in it. I want to have those kinds of people around, inspiring me and believing in the bigger cause. We are not here for the money. We want to be able to not only change the lives of tourists but also of locals. A lot of people love their cities but not many are given the chance to drive the change they want to see in their cities. For us, it’s an honour to be able to do that.