This Tourism Development Framework (TDF) encapsulates the tourism development strategy and implementation framework of the City of Cape Town for the period 2019-2023. The document is based on thorough desk research using available reference sources (tourism-related policies, plans, strategies and statistical research), an online survey conducted among public and private tourism stakeholders, interviews with key opinion leaders and a benchmark study of tourism strategies of four leading global tourism cities.
Progress with implementing the previous TDF has varied. Few projects were successfully implemented. While some of the key projects identified in the previous TDF, upon detailed investigation, proved not to be feasible, others never progressed as planned. Reasons for such limited success may be related to a major restructuring of the City’s tourism department during the period of the TDF, limited support for tourism from related departments in the City, limited human and financial resources allocated to the tourism unit and a lack of clearly defined and well-directed performance monitoring.
A thorough analysis of related legislation, policies and plans indicates that tourism growth is affected by a host of stakeholders and decisions that fall outside of the mandate of the custodian of this TDF, i.e. the Department of Enterprise and Investment. This underlines the critical importance of adopting a “whole of government” approach in managing and implementing the TDF. In addition, tourism growth is the collective domain of public sector, private sector and the community at large and the successful implementation of the TDF will largely depend on the ability of the sector to establish effective and efficient partnerships across the various tiers and components of government and between key public, private and community-based actors.
Current Tourism Situation
Tourism adds major value to Cape Town’s economy and is a job-intensive industry. Over the past decade, the sector has directly contributed between 2% and 3.5% annually to the local economy and has directly sustained between 3% and 5% of all jobs in the city. Currently, the tourism industry employs around 45,000 people directly and adding to this indirect and induced employment, the tourism economy sustains around 150,000 jobs in total. Tourism is arguably the economic sector with the best growth and employment potential in Cape Town.
An assessment of emerging global tourism growth trends suggests that the international tourism environment is fast changing and to compete with the leading tourism cities in the world Cape Town should capitalise on and stay ahead of changes in technology, consumer tastes and travel patterns, environmental management and mounting safety and security concerns. Fortunately, our magnificent city has a rich diversity of assets and features that speak to the trends highlighted in this document. The city is able to offer sustainable, authentic and varied travel experiences and destination managers should develop and manage these optimally and in accordance with market demands.
Despite this potential and major successes achieved in attracting increased international airline capacity to the city, average growth over the past five years has not lived up to expectations and the good growth achieved in 2015 and 2016 did not continue during the latter part of 2017 and into 2018. It is clear that the severe drought and water shortage experienced during Summer 2017/18 have had a negative effect on the industry. Expectations are that the industry should regain some momentum during Summer 2018/19.
The general decline in visitors’ Average Length of Stay (LoS) and Real Daily Expenditure (RDE) over the past five years, coupled with continued high seasonality are of concern and need to be addressed going forward.
There is much to learn from the way other successful global tourism cities manage their tourism sectors. While cities like Barcelona and Melbourne face mounting visitor pressures due to high visitor-resident ratios, these ratios are still relatively low in Cape Town, allowing for an expansive growth approach. Tourism success factors of leading cities include a high value placed on domestic tourism, strong partnerships within government and between government and private sector, a focus on sustainable management, investment in tourism human resources and tourism budgets that allow for high brand exposure and a presence in key markets. Cape Town can improve in all these areas.
Future Growth Direction
The Tourism Vision for 2024 is: “Cape Town’s tourism economy will flourish, consistently recording above-average growth in tourism revenues and employment and being underpinned by environmental sustainability and community support for tourism”.
In pursuing this vision two broad scenarios could unfold over the next five years, namely “Moderate Growth”, based on a business-as-usual approach or “High Growth”, based on the implementation of key interventions proposed in this TDF. The City commits to pursuing the High Growth scenario, towards achieving the ambitious vision. Under the High Growth scenario, the industry will attract R10.3 billion more in tourist expenditure per annum and sustain almost 8,000 more jobs, compared to the Moderate Growth scenario.
The following growth objectives are set for the five years 2019 to 2024 (mid-year):
• International tourist arrivals to increase from 1.62 million to 2.28 million.
• Domestic tourist arrivals to increase from 0.68 million to 0.83 million.
• At least 36% of tourists to arrive during the period May-September, 3.5% up from the current approximately 32,5% of visitors arriving during this period.
• International tourists’ length of stay to increase from 8 to 9 nights.
• Domestic tourists’ length of stay to increase from 7.4 to 8 nights.
• International visitor's average daily expenditure to increase from R1,200 to R1,606 per day.
• Domestic visitor's average daily expenditure to increase from R260 to R348 per day.
• Revenue from international tourism to increase from R15.6bn to R32.9bn per annum.
• Revenue from domestic tourism to increase from R1.3bn to R2.3bn per annum.
• Direct jobs sustained by the tourism industry to increase from 40,050 to 51,100.
In pursuit of these ambitious growth objectives, the City of Cape Town will develop tourism anchored in three fundamental principles i.e. responsible and sustainable tourism development; maximising partnerships and a “whole of government” approach to tourism development.
This Tourism Development Framework (TDF) encapsulates the tourism development strategy and implementation framework of the City of Cape Town for the period 2019-2023. The document is based on thorough desk research using available reference sources (tourism-related policies, plans, strategies and statistical research), an online survey conducted among public and private tourism stakeholders, interviews with key opinion leaders and a benchmark study of tourism strategies of four leading global tourism cities.
Progress with implementing the previous TDF has varied. Few projects were successfully implemented. While some of the key projects identified in the previous TDF, upon detailed investigation, proved not to be feasible, others never progressed as planned. Reasons for such limited success may be related to a major restructuring of the City’s tourism department during the period of the TDF, limited support for tourism from related departments in the City, limited human and financial resources allocated to the tourism unit and a lack of clearly defined and well-directed performance monitoring.
A thorough analysis of related legislation, policies and plans indicates that tourism growth is affected by a host of stakeholders and decisions that fall outside of the mandate of the custodian of this TDF, i.e. the Department of Enterprise and Investment. This underlines the critical importance of adopting a “whole of government” approach in managing and implementing the TDF. In addition, tourism growth is the collective domain of public sector, private sector and the community at large and the successful implementation of the TDF will largely depend on the ability of the sector to establish effective and efficient partnerships across the various tiers and components of government and between key public, private and community-based actors.
Current Tourism Situation
Tourism adds major value to Cape Town’s economy and is a job-intensive industry. Over the past decade, the sector has directly contributed between 2% and 3.5% annually to the local economy and has directly sustained between 3% and 5% of all jobs in the city. Currently, the tourism industry employs around 45,000 people directly and adding to this indirect and induced employment, the tourism economy sustains around 150,000 jobs in total. Tourism is arguably the economic sector with the best growth and employment potential in Cape Town.
An assessment of emerging global tourism growth trends suggests that the international tourism environment is fast changing and to compete with the leading tourism cities in the world Cape Town should capitalise on and stay ahead of changes in technology, consumer tastes and travel patterns, environmental management and mounting safety and security concerns. Fortunately, our magnificent city has a rich diversity of assets and features that speak to the trends highlighted in this document. The city is able to offer sustainable, authentic and varied travel experiences and destination managers should develop and manage these optimally and in accordance with market demands.
Despite this potential and major successes achieved in attracting increased international airline capacity to the city, average growth over the past five years has not lived up to expectations and the good growth achieved in 2015 and 2016 did not continue during the latter part of 2017 and into 2018. It is clear that the severe drought and water shortage experienced during Summer 2017/18 have had a negative effect on the industry. Expectations are that the industry should regain some momentum during Summer 2018/19.
The general decline in visitors’ Average Length of Stay (LoS) and Real Daily Expenditure (RDE) over the past five years, coupled with continued high seasonality are of concern and need to be addressed going forward.
There is much to learn from the way other successful global tourism cities manage their tourism sectors. While cities like Barcelona and Melbourne face mounting visitor pressures due to high visitor-resident ratios, these ratios are still relatively low in Cape Town, allowing for an expansive growth approach. Tourism success factors of leading cities include a high value placed on domestic tourism, strong partnerships within government and between government and private sector, a focus on sustainable management, investment in tourism human resources and tourism budgets that allow for high brand exposure and a presence in key markets. Cape Town can improve in all these areas.
Future Growth Direction
The Tourism Vision for 2024 is: “Cape Town’s tourism economy will flourish, consistently recording above-average growth in tourism revenues and employment and being underpinned by environmental sustainability and community support for tourism”.
In pursuing this vision two broad scenarios could unfold over the next five years, namely “Moderate Growth”, based on a business-as-usual approach or “High Growth”, based on the implementation of key interventions proposed in this TDF. The City commits to pursuing the High Growth scenario, towards achieving the ambitious vision. Under the High Growth scenario, the industry will attract R10.3 billion more in tourist expenditure per annum and sustain almost 8,000 more jobs, compared to the Moderate Growth scenario.
The following growth objectives are set for the five years 2019 to 2024 (mid-year):
• International tourist arrivals to increase from 1.62 million to 2.28 million.
• Domestic tourist arrivals to increase from 0.68 million to 0.83 million.
• At least 36% of tourists to arrive during the period May-September, 3.5% up from the current approximately 32,5% of visitors arriving during this period.
• International tourists’ length of stay to increase from 8 to 9 nights.
• Domestic tourists’ length of stay to increase from 7.4 to 8 nights.
• International visitor's average daily expenditure to increase from R1,200 to R1,606 per day.
• Domestic visitor's average daily expenditure to increase from R260 to R348 per day.
• Revenue from international tourism to increase from R15.6bn to R32.9bn per annum.
• Revenue from domestic tourism to increase from R1.3bn to R2.3bn per annum.
• Direct jobs sustained by the tourism industry to increase from 40,050 to 51,100.
In pursuit of these ambitious growth objectives, the City of Cape Town will develop tourism anchored in three fundamental principles i.e. responsible and sustainable tourism development; maximising partnerships and a “whole of government” approach to tourism development.
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