Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis has welcomed the city’s ranking as second in Time Out’s survey of the ’50 Best Cities in the World to Visit’ in 2024.
Also read: Cape Town ranked as the best city in Africa by Brand Finance City Index
The rankings are the result of Time Out‘s extensive survey of 20 000 global travellers, as well as its network of travel writers and editors. Surprisingly, Time Out reported that every single respondent rated Cape Town as a beautiful city to visit, contributing to the city’s ranking second only to New York.
‘Tourism to Cape Town is now at all-time record levels, which will only be boosted even more by our world-beating ranking in the ’50 Best Cities in the World to Visit 2024′ global survey. This is good news because record tourism brings new jobs in our City of Cape Town, and that is always our primary goal.’
‘It takes a big Team Cape Town effort to offer tourists a world-class experience. Our city is clearly impressing visitors, who uniformly highlighted the beauty of our destination in responses to this global poll.’
Cape {town} Etc discount: Looking for things to do in the city at half the price? Let these offers inspire you. Get them here.
‘The City is making the right investments now to ensure Cape Town is an even better place to visit in future. That includes a record infrastructure investment pipeline, advanced plans for water and energy security, and growing our policing resources to keep making Cape Town safer,’ said Hill-Lewis.
According to James Vos, mayoral committee member for economic growth, Cape Town received 317 000 overseas visitors in December and 2.9 million visitors in 2023. Both of these figures set new all-time records, resulting in more tourism jobs in the city economy.
‘It’s exhilarating to see that our beloved city continues to be a top tier choice for global travellers and these record tourism numbers will significantly benefit the hospitality sector and attractions, indicating a positive year ahead for the sector and our goal of a tourism-related job in every Cape Town home. We continue to drive this success through various destination marketing campaigns and city-to-city connectivity initiatives. Additionally, our goal is to unveil our Responsible Tourism charter for local industry operators because we must craft and nurture places that are not only captivating to visit but also enriching for those who call them home. This industry is not just about attracting visitors; it’s about fostering an ecosystem that supports our local businesses and communities, driving forward our city’s prosperity,’ said Vos.
Explore Cape Town and its surroundings with these incredible deals on cars for under R100 000. Find car listings here.
The top 10 best cities in the world to visit in 2024 are:
- New York, USA
- Cape Town, SA
- Berlin, Germany
- London, UK
- Madrid, Spain
- Mexico City, Mexico
- Liverpool, UK
- Tokyo, Japan
- Rome, Italy
- Porto, Portugal
In addition, Cape Town has been named the city with the ‘best community spirit’ in Africa, according to a Remitly study that looked at the average number of social media community groups that people join. According to the study, Cape Town has the most Meetup community groups on the continent. This showed a level of social cohesion and inclusivity in the city, with residents interacting across a range of shared social interests.
Also read:
Picture: Supplied / CoCT