Excellent news for the marketing of Cape Town is that the new Bollywood movie ‘Cocktail’, which was largely shot in Cape Town, has seen the launch of a new TV commercial by SA Tourism to promote tourism to South Africa among Indian tourists, to co-incide with the release of the movie, reports Best Media Info.
The 30 second TV commercial has been released on international TV channels such as HBO and MTV, and communicates that Cape Town offers travellers ‘a truly unique fusion of fun, exciting, adventurous and memorable holiday experience to take home and treasure‘.
Beautiful scenes have been shot in Camps Bay in particular, the V&A Waterfront, and the Trinity night club are also featured in the TV commercial.
‘Cocktail‘ features three friends who visit Cape Town for a holiday, leading to a romance between two of them. The movie filming commenced in London last year, including locations such as Piccadilly Circus, Leicester Square, Portobello Road, and Notting Hill. Then the action moved to Cape Town, and an upbeat dance number for one of the main songs in the movie was shot at a set specially created at Maiden’s Cove in Camps Bay. The perfect weather in Cape Town at the time of the shoot allowed Table Mountain
, the Twelve Apostles, and Camps Bay, as well as in the V&A Waterfront to be featured in the filming.
The director of the movie, Homi Adajania, said that shooting the movie in Cape Town was a ‘dream holiday’ for the film crew too, being ‘as delightful an experience‘. Whilst they had the opportunity, the main actors went whale watching and shark cage diving. The actresses loved the local food, and they discovered our wonderful fish, and they ‘feasted on the South African delicacy – the Kingklip fish’. The cast enjoyed eating on Long Street, in the V&A Waterfront (including Belthazar), and at Beluga. Adajania said about Capetonians: ‘all South Africans are outdoorsy, fun-loving people who prefer to sprint on the roads at night, while weekends to them mean adventure sports‘!
The ‘Cocktail’ movie trailer was a huge hit when it was released two months ago, and had 1 million hits on YouTube within three days. The movie went on circuit two weeks ago.
SA Tourism’s dynamic Country Manager in India, Hanneli Slabber, said that ‘we are really excited to be associated with ‘Cocktail’ on this TVC (television commercial) campaign and we want to showcase the best that Cape Town has to offer to Indian Travelers. The movie showcases the star cast having a fun-filled holiday in South Africa and it blends perfectly with our positioning as being an exhilarating, fun and memorable holiday destination. This association gives us an unprecedented opportunity to showcase South Africa on the Bollywood stage and reach out to the vast section of movie going audience’. Growth in tourists from India in the first three months of this year was up 23 % compared to a year ago, and reflects that the country is becoming one of the favourite travel destinations amongst Indian tourists.
In recognition of the tourism growth from India, SA Tourism produced a cookbook for the hospitality industry, ‘Guide to Vegetarian, Vegan and Jain Dining in South Africa’, in conjunction with the SA Chefs Association, detailing the specific dietary requirements of vegetarians, vegans and Jains in India; gives lists of food items that each group may (and may not) eat; gives a brief explanation of the culture that informs the dietary needs of these tourists; and gives a broad selection of recipes that will keep vegetarian, vegan and Jain visitors happy and well-fed as they explore South Africa.
The Cape Town tourism industry would be very happy to see the new ‘Cocktail’ movie, as well as the SA Tourism TV advertising campaign, resulting in a growth in the number of tourists from India in Cape Town.
POSTSCRIPT 30/7: SAA has announced that it is increasing its Mumbai-Johannesburg flight frequency to daily from 3 October onwards, reports The Times.
POSTSCRIPT 5/8: The Times of India reports that the number of enquiries for travel to South Africa has increased by 10% just one month after the release of the ‘Cocktail’ movie. It writes that S A Tourism has ‘tied up with 7 Hindi film production houses‘. ‘South Africa Tourism sees Bollywood as an effective way to compensate for the lack of a high budget to promote tourism‘. The newspaper quotes SA Tourism Country Manager Hanneli Slabber in saying: “We are lucky Bollywood fell in love with Cape Town. Bollywood has been very kind and will be a cost-effective way to showcase South Africa as a great tourism destination”.
Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com Twitter: @WhaleCottage