July 6, 2009

[Editorial column] 2010: are we our own worst enemy?

By Simone Puterman in Branding, Editor's column, Marketing | 1 comment

Today Dr Nikolaus Eberl asks if hotel greed will kill South Africa’s tourism brand beyond 2010 and wonders whether SA will take the high road - using 2010 as a foundation on which to build tourism in the future, or the low road, which will virtually guarantee that the industry will be hammered. He paints a bleak picture of how Athens burnt its tourism brand by hiking prices through the roof. In similar fashion, he recounts how Cape Town managed to hammer its film industry by doing exactly the same thing.

Talking about tourism, 2010 and beyond, the Eastern Cape is one province determined to take the high road. Its tourism board last week launched a revamped destination brand and 2010 sub-brand, positioning the Eastern Cape as South Africa’s “Adventure Province” “where the game never ends 2010 & beyond”. Orchestrated by Boomtown, the brand essence has been developed to position and brand the province strategically and to differentiate the Eastern Cape in the domestic and global markets. According to Zola Tshefu, Eastern Cape Tourism Board CEO, “Adventure is the one area that the Eastern Cape can factually dominate over competing provinces and is also the most important desire for travelers in the international and domestic market segments.”

Moving on to business tourism, another brand following in the footsteps of the Imperial Car Rental/Europcar global footprint rebranding strategy in time for 2010 has been the revamped iconic Rosebank Hotel, which is now the Crowne Plaza Johannesburg - The Rosebank. Its sister Magaliesburg property, the Mount Grace Country House & Spa, has also invested R135 million in a refurbishment programmed which concluded with the recent unveiling of its new state-of-the-art conference centre.

This is all just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to SA readying itself for the beautiful game next year.

“Ke Nako [it's time]”
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This column originally published 6 July 2009.

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1 Comment(s)

  1. Cape Town tours | Oct 7, 2009 | Reply

    Really good post. Thanks for the ‘lekker’ reading. Let’s see what route they will take. Fact is that 2010 will be crucial in the upliftment for SA.

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