The City of Cape Town has launched its most ambitious tourism marketing campaign to date, called This Is Cape Town.
The Mayoral Committee Member for Tourism and Economic Growth, James Vos, led the launch of the campaign at the Radisson RED hotel in the Silo district of the V&A Waterfront on Tuesday morning.
Joined by tourism roleplayers from across the City and province, including numerous tour guides and members of consulates, Vos labelled the launch of This Is Cape Town as a milestone moment in his career.
With an existing 228 international flights a week in peak season to Cape Town, and 2.4 million overnight visitors to the Mother City last year, Vos wants to up the ante.
Cape Town will now be marketed on 6 continents in 55 Cities, including 42 digital billboards in central New York, on yellow taxis, London’s black cabs, moving billboards around the world, TV channels in Europe, a major social media rollout across platforms and brochures in 6 languages deposited in airline seat pockets.
Handy QR codes will be included on every billboard and brochure, which the City hopes will lead to forward bookings.
Vos says they have major partnerships with several entities and airlines, including Norse Airways and Virgin Atlantic.
The campaign rollout will be done in stages, with delegates attending the G20 already targeted through Cape Town branding at the OR Tambo International Airport.
Today, 2 December, the campaign officially launched in Brazil and Africa, which will be followed by Europe, the UK, the USA and India in January 2026.
In February, This Is Cape Town will roll out to China and Australia. Vos says China and India remain target source markets, with India especially, which remains a largely untapped market.
He says this campaign was also informed by plenty of research, which shows visitors want a rich, emotional experience when they travel, one that goes beyond beaches and mountains, but connects travellers to arts and culture, and real experiences.
“We want to evoke people’s emotions, from the ‘wow moments’ to the ‘ahhh..moments’, people travel for feelings…”
The 6 pillars of the campaign aim to showcase everything that Cape Town has on offer:
- Visit
- Live
- Work
- Study
- Play
- Invest
Vos explains his number one goal is to secure 1 tourism-related job in every household. He says Cape Town is ready to welcome the world.
“More visitors mean more bookings for our restaurants, attractions, tours, and small businesses. Tourism has already created more than 106,000 jobs, but I am determined to see that number grow. My long-term goal is to see at least one tourism-related job in every household in our city.”
