Joint tourism marketing agreement initiated

Cape Town Tourism, Johannesburg Tourism and Durban Tourism met at the 2011 Tourism Indaba this weekend to initiate a joint city marketing agreement between the three cities.

Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban are South Africa’s economic and tourism hubs and the joint marketing agreement will see them collaborate to maximise tourism development and marketing.

The three organisations agree that cities are the lead brands for countries. Cities are globally recognised as the prism through which countries are viewed and are described as a country’s most durable assets. Cities have history, heritage that has stood the test of time as well as promising developmental futures.

Out of the top 10 destinations in Tripadvisor’s Readers Choice Awards, nine were cities, of which Cape Town took the number one spot.

The joint agreement is the outcome of the three cities reassessing strategies and committing to go beyond the traditional to challenge compartmentalised marketing thinking. "Cape Town, Johannesburg and Durban tell three very different and unique but complementary stories. I strongly believe that we add value to each other’s leisure and business tourism offering and I think that this will also go a long way towards providing the prospective international traveller with a seamless impression of destination South Africa. The time has come for us to use creative and innovative ways to maximise the domestic and international leisure as well as business tourism potential, for all three cities," says Mariette du Toit-Helmbold, CEO of Cape Town Tourism.