Speaker: Mariette du Toit-Helmbold, CEO Cape Town Tourism With Cape Town ranking as one of the top ten cities internationally, du Toit-Helmbold introduced her presentation by noting that next year would be about much more than 2010.

With Cape Town ranking as one of the top ten cities internationally, du Toit-Helmbold introduced her presentation by noting that the 2010 FIFA World Cup is about much more than the event itself: ‘Our vision stretches beyond 2010 towards 2020 to make sure that Cape Town is positioned very strongly as one of the world’s most iconic cities reflected in the economic wellbeing of every citizen. It needs to be not only a great place to visit but it must be a fantastic place to live.’

As a result, Cape Town Tourism developed a 2010 visitor strategy in 2005 and a series of tourism project plans, currently awaiting official approval by the City of Cape Town. Cape Town Tourism is responsible for the coordination of work streams like Destination Marketing, Visitor Services, Industry Communication and Training, Accommodation Readiness with a link to Tourism Transport as well as Responsible Tourism.

‘Ultimately this event is about tourism and the visitors it brings to Cape Town. We are going to be inundated with many people who would otherwise not have visited our destination. We have an opportunity to show the world that we are professional, run great businesses, and have a great destination to invest in for the future. Unlike Germany, we don’t have to prove that we’re a friendly bunch of people, but we do have to prove that we can pull this off and do so brilliantly.

‘I always say that a lack of confidence, in who we are as a people and as a city, is one of our biggest stumbling blocks for economic growth. It’s high time that we, as citizens, back up Brand Cape Town in a much greater way.’

Noting that Cape Town was already a sought-after destination that hosted a number of large international events annually, du Toit-Helmbold stressed that the challenge for 2010 would lie in dealing with ‘a different type of visitor’ – the soccer tourist – quite different from the normal leisure tourist or business traveler. ‘So we need to make sure that we can accommodate all these people and meet their unique expectations.’

Cape Town Tourism was therefore focusing all its efforts leading up to 2010 around two key opportunities, the first of which would be Destination Marketing. Explained du Toit-Helmbold: ‘Cape Town will be televised to a huge global audience and we need to make sure that we provide people with the right pictures and stories of Cape Town.’

The second opportunity dealt with Legacy. Said du Toit-Helmbold: ‘It’s very important to lay the foundations for sustained growth beyond the World Cup in terms of economic development and job creation; improved and new infrastructure; civic pride; service excellence; a sustainable and green Cape Town; safety and security; and finally creating a 365-day destination.’

One of the key factors in maximizing these opportunities will be accommodation. Said du Toit-Helmbold: ‘A lot of people are speculating that we don’t have enough space. But actually very few host cities have our capacity. What we need to make sure of is a diversity of offering and value for money experiences. So we’re looking at temporary stock and accreditation for people who might want to put their place up for rent. But right now in terms of Cape Town and a two-hour radius around Cape Town we estimate that we will have about 70 000 beds available for the World Cup.’

Noting that most tourist visits to Cape Town (or in fact any destination) follow ‘the customer journey’, beginning with the initial dream of planning a holiday and culminating in the final visit, which leads to recommendations to friends and relatives. ‘The Customer Journey is very important to us,’ said du Toit-Helmbold. ‘For the World Cup our focus will be on the ‘visit’ part of the journey and most of our time and resources will be spent on ‘in-destination activation’ to ensure that visitors’ expectations are exceeded and that they return as leisure, business and events visitors. So we will not be spending huge amounts of money on external marketing during the World Cup.

The upgrading of Visitors Services and the provision of quality information would also be key to 2010, as would Responsible Tourism, which would see – among other elements – the putting together of a responsible visitor tourism code. Says du Toit-Helmbold: ‘There are cultural issues that impact on this: issues of sex tourism, adult entertainment – all of these things go hand in hand with major events. As a destination we also need to make sure that we look at the underbelly of tourism and deal with that upfront and in a very mature way.’

Bolstering all programmes planned by Cape Town Tourism would be Communication and a strategy for E-marketing.

Closing on a sober note, du Toit-Helmbold said: ‘There is another side to major events that we’ve seen in cities like Athens and Sydney – often people have the perception that with a major event comes price increases, over-crowding and the major issue of displacement. Many people that would have come on holiday here might decide to holiday elsewhere because they don’t want to deal with the congestion. So we’ve got to balance all the amazing things that go around with the World Cup with the negative aspects, plan effectively and deal with them upfront.

‘Statistics on Sydney’s tourism arrivals following the Olympic Games showed a significant dip, and it took a long time for that growth pattern to heal. It’s important to learn from other destination and host cities and really look now at what we do after the World Cup so that we can deliver a successful event and use it for sustained growth.”

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