Cape Town Tourism is looking to grow the number of visitors to the region through the recently launched Cape Town Toolkit.
The tool kit is a digital toolkit that showcases and sells Cape Town as a top tourist destination to the global village.
According to the Group, the toolkit includes diverse itineraries, high-quality images and information about Cape Town that allows registered users in the travel, tourism and marketing trade to access promotional material and resources at the touch of a button. Users can select specific elements, download packaged information and put together customised itineraries, using Cape Town Tourism collateral. Users are also able to share content in accordance with Cape Town Tourism’s new marketing theme: “You don’t need a holiday, you need Cape Town!”
The digital Facebook campaign is aimed at speaking to the rapidly growing social media market and which will connect more would-be travellers than ever to Cape Town. Cape Town Tourism will also be collaborating with four top international travel bloggers on an international destination marketing campaign during August.
By March of this year there were 835 million Facebook users (Internet World Statistics), while 79.8% of the world’s population owned a mobile (cellular) phone as of last year (Gartner) and by 2011, the global smart phone penetration sat at 27% of the population (Visionmobile).
Meanwhile, China recently surpassed the USA as the number one country by volume of smartphones. In fact, according to eMarketer, adults now spend more media time on mobile devices than newspapers and magazines combined.
People are using smart phones to browse the web, check information, compare costs and services, navigate, purchase and share. A study (by Tradedoubler and Forrester Consulting) focused on Sweden, Germany, France and the UK found that 53% of smartphone users are now buying goods and services on their devices, while 71% are researching potential purchases via their handsets. In the USA alone, mobile was responsible for $2.6 billion in travel booking value in 2011. This number is projected to exceed $8 billion by 2013. (PhoCusWright January 2012).
The potential for e-commerce aside, digital platforms represent massive potential for marketing at a fraction of the cost of a global television or print campaign. It’s with a smart-spend attitude that Cape Town Tourism has chosen to invest significantly in the digital media platform to promote its “You Don’t Need a Holiday, You Need Cape Town” campaign.
Mariëtte du Toit-Helmbold, Cape Town Tourism CEO remarks “Digital media and social platforms are truly changing travel – and the behaviour of travellers – as they dream, experience and share.
