Media reports earlier this week have sown confusion about who is handling the marketing of Cape Town.
The Cape Times reported that the marketing of Cape Town had only been awarded to Cape Town Tourism (CTT) for a six month period, in a caretaking role, until “the city could find a permanent solution”, according to the City’s Theuns Vivian, of its Economic , Social Development and Tourism department. The City acknowledged that it was unable to do the marketing of Cape Town internally. Confusion was particularly created with the paragraph:”The consultants said that while there was some advantage in keeping CTT as the marketing agency, it could create confusion. CTT was also not “currently geared” to act as destination marketing organisation.”
This paragraph reflects in part the criticsm of the City’s decision to withdraw its funding of Cape Town Routes Unlimited in July last year, as voiced by the province MEC Garth Strachan.
The Cape Argus wrote that the City was looking for an external body to market Cape Town. It also referred to Cape Town Tourism conducting this task for the City “in the interim”.
Members of Cape Town Tourism voted last year to change the Constitution of Cape Town Tourism, to allow it to take on the marketing role for the City.
Mariette du Toit-Helmbold, CEO of Cape Town Tourism, reacted to the Cape Times article by saying that “it is a misrepresentation by a journalist of the City’s public participation process undertaken to determine whether marketing and visitor services must be outsourced or internalized in future.” The City had approved the outsourcing of the marketing this week. “I have double checked with Mansoor Mohammed (head of the City’s tourism department), and he has put the story into perspective. He has promised to address a letter of clarification to me for interested parties. We will not respond to the media on this, although we know that bad reporting does a lot of damage to the industry and can create unnecessary confusion.’ she wrote.
Du Toit-Helmbold did indicate that Cape Town Tourism does have to apply, through an open tender, to be appointed the marketing agency for the City, in order to prevent any future questions about the legality of the appointment. While this process is in place, the appointment of Cape Town Tourism is contractually agreed until 30 June 2009, with the view that the public participation process will have been completed, and Cape Town Tourism can then be appointed on a three year contract.
Cape Town Tourism is in full swing in offering Marketing services for Cape Town, according to its contract with the City and the mandate from its members to do so.
In the mean time, the City’s Economic Development and Tourism department has been found to “not be up to its task”, reports the Cape Argus, and therefore a R 1,2 million review is to be undertaken of the department’s activities. Called Project Rejuvenate, the organisation structure of the department is inadequate in allowing the Department to meet its mandate. The project includes retraining existing staff and sourcing new staff.
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