With an eye on enticing foreign investment, the city’s Economic Growth Directorate and Cape Town Tourism met with UK travel industry leaders, airline executives, investors, and members of the British media at the South Africa House in London, over the weekend, to give them a sample of what Cape Town has to offer.
Also read: Cape Town gears up for the summer season with 24 weekly flights to UK
The meeting was the first leg of the delegation’s trade mission to London which will also see them meet with the Greater London Authority, the local government team responsible for their economic regeneration strategies.
Mayoral Member for Economic Growth and Tourism, James Vos, explained that the UK is one of Cape Town’s biggest travel and trade source markets for the city and is currently the Mother City’s single largest international air travel market, making up over 20% of passengers.
“This season, Cape Town will welcome 24 flights each week from London’s Gatwick and Heathrow airports,” said Vos. “It is also the third-largest export market for the Cape and is among the top sources of foreign direct investment in South Africa.”
Between 2010 and 2021, more than 200 UK companies invested in 274 foreign direct investment projects within our borders, reaching a total capital expenditure of R164,6 billion and creating 22 500 jobs.
“This is, however, only a fraction of the potential economic opportunities to be realized for Cape Town,” Vos added. “Our goal over the next few days is to secure more investments, travel and trade from the UK market, thus driving more revenue into our local economy and creating more jobs for Capetonians.”
Vos was joined by team members of the Enterprise and Investment Department and Cape Town Tourism CEO, Enver Duminy.
To give UK guests a taste of Cape Town and South Africa, they were served with items such as boerewors, samoosas, chakalaka on vetkoek and South African made wine.
“This was topped with a presentation I made on Cape Town’s tourism value proposition and economic opportunities that await them,” said Vos.
“Later in the week, we are attending the World Travel Market where I will join a panel looking at how industry and governments should respond to the remote worker market”
The final leg of the trade mission sees the delegation head to the City Nation Place Global conference which focuses on destination attraction development.
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