{"id":37102,"date":"2012-10-17T09:37:35","date_gmt":"2012-10-17T07:37:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.whalecottage.com\/blog\/?p=37102"},"modified":"2012-10-17T09:44:27","modified_gmt":"2012-10-17T07:44:27","slug":"western-cape-tourism-industry-must-operate-at-110-says-tourism-minister-winde","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chrisvonulmenstein.com\/blog\/cape-town\/western-cape-tourism-industry-must-operate-at-110-says-tourism-minister-winde\/","title":{"rendered":"Western Cape Tourism industry must operate at 110%, says Tourism Minister Winde!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Minister Alan Winde has encouraged the Western Cape Tourism industry to offer its clients excellent service. \u00a0‘We cannot have any of our attractions and destinations not operating at 110%’<\/em>, he told a media conference on Monday, given that Tourism generates R18 billion per year in revenue from 1,4 million tourists for the Western Cape.<\/p>\n

Minister Winde would like to grow the Tourism numbers and revenue, saying that this is only possible if ‘we all work Better Together’<\/em>. Addressing the axing of SAA’s London-Cape Town Route, Minister Winde said he would welcome the reinstatement of the route (intimated by the new SAA CEO last week), and that the focus is on bringing tourists from other parts of the country and Africa directly to Cape Town. \u00a0He mentioned that Lufthansa’s new Cape Town – Munich direct flights need to be well-filled for the service to be continued. Flights from Northern Italy are also being considered.<\/p>\n

The Tourism Act 2004 is in the process of being repealed, and the Wesgro Act is being amended. A new Western Cape Tourism Trade and Investment Bill is in draft form, and input is being sought from roleplayers in the province.<\/p>\n

Latest Tourism arrival statistics presented by national Tourism Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk continue to astound Western Cape operators, who are not seeing the reported 10,5% growth for the first half of this year relative to the same period in 2011, with 4,4 million arrivals, of which 1,2 million were international tourists, according to Fin24. <\/strong>Growth was strong from Brazil and China in particular, as well as from India. \u00a0‘We are very encouraged to see that our carefully formulated tourism growth strategy to increase tourist arrivals to South Africa is yielding the desired results, with excellent growth achieved in the markets where we are actively marketing destination South Africa, and good returns being realised in markets that we have identified as sources of strong tourism potential for our country’, <\/em>said Minister van Schalkwyk. \u00a0In a rare reference to the Tourism industry, President Jacob Zuma congratulated his Department of Tourism and the industry on the good growth performance!<\/p>\n

A report entitled ‘South Africa Travel and Tourism Market 2016 Forecast’<\/em>, prepared by\u00a0ReportsnReports.com<\/strong>, provides the following feedback about our country’s Tourism trends:<\/p>\n

* \u00a0 South Africa is the second most visited country in Africa, after Morocco<\/p>\n

* \u00a0 Domestic Tourism has declined from 36 million trips to 24 million in the past five years.<\/p>\n

* \u00a0 The FIFA World Cup 2010 led to an oversupply of accommodation, causing occupancy to plummet, a problem prevalent in Cape Town.<\/p>\n

The industry has been critical of the national Tourism Minister’s information, not reflecting the experience of tourism operators, but the Minister stands by his statistics. \u00a0One must then ask the provincial Minister why so few of these international tourists are making it down to the Cape, and what he and Wesgro are doing about the lack of seats on SAA to Cape Town from Johannesburg on Fridays, given his goal to grow tourism to our province.<\/p>\n

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com <\/a> Twitter: @WhaleCottage<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Minister Alan Winde has encouraged the Western Cape Tourism industry to offer its clients excellent service. \u00a0‘We cannot have any of our attractions and destinations not operating at 110%’, he told a media conference on Monday, given that Tourism generates R18 billion per year in revenue from 1,4 million tourists for the Western Cape. Minister […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false},"categories":[3,124,22,516,21],"tags":[17380,17378,2145,32366,2152,32378,1480,2379,17381,8613,1232,669,16211,534,14175,759,32388,5,824,515,15308,17379,32373],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t