Cape Town named Best Destination in Africa

26 September 2011

Cape Town has been named the Best Destination in Africa at the World Tourism Awards - the 7th time the city has received this accolade.

Cape Town, voted the Best Destination in Africa by travel agents worldwide, beat iconic destinations like Luxor in Egypt, Marrakech in Morocco and the Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe to win the coveted title at the 18th World Travel Awards, 2011. It is the 7th time the city has won the award.

Cape Town, South Africa's most-visited destination, regularly receives international accolades for its attractions. In 2010, Cape Town joined Paris, London, New York and Venice as one of Forbesmagazine's 10 most beautiful cities in the world. The city was also voted TripAdvisor’s Top Destination 2011 and came 6th in the 2011 Travel and Leisure’s World’s Best Cities award.


Cape Town Tourism CEO, Mariëtte du Toit-Helmbold, said: ‘Naturally we are proud of this award and the recognition it brings, but awards must be followed up with campaigns that convert awareness into real visitors to the destination.’ She added that the ability to choose quality travel products is becoming increasingly important to both business and consumer travellers.

 

Du Toit-Helmbold confirmed that the City of Cape Town planned to leverage the win to complement a new national and international marketing campaign aimed at increasing demand for Cape Town. With the global recession affecting travellers and their budget, the campaign is part of a broad strategy Cape Town Tourism is implementing to meet the changing market conditions and consumer demands.

 

Cape Town Tourism will launch the campaign locally on 17 October and it will be rolled out internationally at the World Travel Market in November 2011.

Graham E Cooke, founder and president of the World Travel Awards, said: ‘Consumers are increasingly using the list of winners as a reliable guide and means of reassurance when choosing their holiday and the number of multinational companies who have been spearheading their global marketing campaigns with their award victories is increasing.’

Source: SA Tourism