Tourism Marketing Campaign in Cape Town Turns to Surfers for Drought Recovery
Photo Caption: Cape Town Tourism used surfer Mikey February in its 'ItsAllStillHere' drought recovery marketing campaign. Sacha Specker
Skift Take
A savvy social media campaign is a good start, but Cape Town’s tourism industry has a long road ahead to undo the damage from the worst drought in a century.
#ItsAllStillHere.
That’s the message Cape Town’s tourism bosses are putting out in a bid to revive the South African city’s all-important tourism industry in the wake of a three-year drought that has seen arrivals dip, hotel rates plummet, and forward bookings soften.
Tourism is crucial to the regional economy of the Western Cape province. The city receives more than three million visitors per year, contributing more than $3 billion to the local economy. And in a country burdened with an unemployment rate of 27 percent, the drought posed a serious threat to hundreds of thousands of jobs in the sector.
During the peak of the three-year drought, the city’s tourism bodies worked steadily to convey the message that tourists should still visit, but be mindful of their water usage. However, global media coverage that Cape Town was just weeks away from running out of water �
