December 2012 marked the only billionth international tourism arrival globally and competition between destinations is more fierce than ever. Staying relevant by maintaining with future trends is a key focus at this year’s ITB tourism trade event in Berlin, set to attract some 170,000 visitors between March 6-10, 2013. As in previous years, Cape Town Tourism and Wesgro are representing the region’s tourism industry at ITB.
As portion of ITB’s strong specialize in etravel, Cape Town Tourism CEO, Mariette du Toit-Helmbold (pictured), is presenting a conversation called “How Tourism Boards Work With Social Media, Local Citizens And Travel Bloggers To inform The tale Of A Destination” on March 9.
The talk follows a year where Cape Town Tourism caught the notice of world tourism trend watchers through its #LoveCapeTown social media campaign. The campaign included an iambassador campaign that saw the DMO bringing respected international bloggers to Cape Town to experience the destination first hand. The main factor that differentiated the campaign is that Cape Town’s twitter community felt a swelling of pride about their town and engaged heavily with the visiting e-journos about what to do and spot during their stay.
The #loveCapeTown program has since been included in a White Paper on travel blogging and used for example internationally on how DMOs can work with travel bloggers. Plans are afoot to continue the #loveCapeTown campaign during 2013, at the side of South African Tourism and a set of international and native bloggers. Most significantly the tag is now component of the social media lingua franca when regarding Cape Town.
In addition to the strong take care of social media and digital marketing, Cape Town Tourism is (along side Blue Yonder, India) a co-partner of ITB’s Responsible Tourism program and could feature as a part of their CSR day program on March 7. Up for discussion may be the need for tourist interactions with local communities and problems surrounding water shortages and rising energy costs.
Councillor Grant Pascoe, Mayoral Committee Member for Tourism, Events and Marketing on the City of Cape Town, says: “The City of Cape Town is driving responsible tourism with the support of industry players like Cape Town Tourism. The purpose is to go from pockets of excellence to a complete destination approach.
“This means the adaption of RT principles as a core way of doing business – not just by a specific group of responsible operators but by the complete tourism industry. The Responsible Tourism Pilot Project is an example of the way the responsible tourism principles were adopted on a large scale by the industry.” Added Grant.
Speaking at the broader objectives in their visit to ITB, Du Toit-Helmbold said: “Our key challenge within the industry is to stimulate jobs and investment by eliminating barriers to travel reminiscent of visa restrictions, taxation, and outmoded infrastructure systems. i’m confident that these issues shall be addressed at Europe’s premier travel trade fair – ITB Berlin. It’s the key place to be told about new trends, market developments, and to deepen existing business relations.”