Tourism & Leisure

If the first wave of international interest in the Western Cape as a tourist destination could be attributed to the feel-good factor following the country’s fi rst democratic elections in 1994, the consistent growth in this sector since 2003 has come with constant improvements and major investments. The decision by India’s Tata Group to build the 176-room Taj Hotel in downtown Cape Town at a cost of R500-million is only the latest in a string of recent developments in the province.

The City of Cape Town is at the heart of most marketing strategies as it enjoys a high profi le internationally, but the provincial tourism authority (Cape Town Routes Unlimited) works hard to feed that brand recognition into helping visitors discover other parts of the Western Cape.

The six tourism regions of the Western Cape are:
Cape Town
The iconic Table Mountain, Robben Island and the Cape Point Nature Reserve are the most recognisable images to represent this cosmopolitan city. Other highlights are Constantia vineyards, Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens and the V&A Waterfront.

Cape Winelands
Stretching far into the interior with varied landscapes, this region offers a number of wine tours and excellent dining in beautiful settings.

Cape Garden Route and Klein Karoo
The fertile valley of the Klein Karoo is rich in fruit, wine and port, and is the home of the ostrich and the Cango Caves near Oudtshoorn. On the sea side of the mountains is the picturesque Garden Route, home to many golf courses and great beaches.

Cape Overberg
The southern tip of Africa can be spotted at Agulhas where the Indian and the Atlantic oceans meet. Whale-watching has become an economic growth point in itself, with several boat operators offering close-up views.

Cape West Coast
Guesthouses fill up all along the West Coast at spring time, when the region’s wild flowers bloom. Beach restaurants serve fresh fish and the valleys have superb fruit and rooibos tea. The ragged Cederberg Mountains are also popular.

Cape Karoo
The N2 highway takes visitors straight through the dry interior, which has a charm of its own. Small-town tourism is on an upward curve, with many city people relocating in search of clear air and open space.

Provincial investment agency Wesgro reports that the wholesale, retail, hotel and restaurant trade grew in the province in 2006 at a rate of 7.2%. This is a repeat of a trend that has seen tremendous growth in tourism from 2003 onwards. (Foreign arrivals are up 115% for the 10 years from 1998.) New hotels have opened every year and bed-and-breakfast and guest-lodge establishments have sprung up in every town, village and hamlet, and on farms, mountainsides and riverbanks.

Airports Company South Africa (Acsa), which runs the province’s two major airports in Cape Town and George, reported that passenger arrival numbers were down nearly 12% for the first quarter of 2009 compared to the same period in 2008. This was a direct result of the global economic recession.

The Western Cape was fortunate that several major sporting events followed in the succeeding quarters of 2009, and these attracted many foreign visitors. Although no Western Cape venue was used for the Fifa 2009 Confederations Cup, Cape Town did receive visitors who came to the country for the soccer. Some teams did their preparations in the Western Cape before flying up to the Highveld for the tournament itself.

Cape Town was a venue for the British and Irish Lions rugby tour, and it played host to a number of games in the Indian Premier League, the popular limited-overs cricket competition, which was relocated to South Africa during 2009.

The visit by the English cricket team to South Africa is always a welcome event for the hospitality trade and the New Year’s Test match at Newlands Cricket Ground is sure to be a sell-out at the start of 2010. Most good accommodation in the greater Newlands and Rondebosch area was booked out a year in advance of this popular traditional event.

Similarly, any negative effects that the recession may have on the number of tourists moving around the world will be negated for the Western Cape – at least in part – by the fact that Cape Town will host a number of important games in the 2010 Fifa World Cup tournament. This will not only boost visitor numbers to the city, but also to the province.

One guesthouse in the Karoo, situated near the spectacular Meiringspoort and equidistant from Cape Town and Port Elizabeth, has been booked out for part of the duration of the 2010 Fifa World Cup. The intention of the Dutch visitors is to travel to matches at either of these cities by car, and to fly to other venues around South Africa from George Airport.

Sport is an important component of the Western Cape’s tourism industry. Apart from spectators, there are several events that attract thousands of participants. The two biggest are the Cape Argus Pick n Pay Cycle Tour (35 000) and the Old Mutual Two Oceans Marathon (25 000).

Golf tourism is another growth industry. There are more than 16 golf courses and estates along the Garden Route alone. Some of these are exclusive, such as The Links at Fancourt in George, but the same town also boasts one of the best public courses in South Africa.

Infrastructure
The many attractions of the province are well supported by excellent infrastructure. The country’s second-largest airport, Cape Town International, received 7.2 million passengers in 2006 and has the capacity to deal with 8.5 million. George Airport is a convenient point of arrival for any of the many attractions of the Garden Route. The province’s rail and road network is well developed, and the fact that Cape Town is linked to Europe via submarine cable and satellite networks makes communication easy. Being in the same time zone as most of Western Europe (GMT +2) also brings advantages for travellers from that zone.

Most of the larger hotels have conference facilities, and the Cape Town International Conference Centre, at the entrance to the V&A Waterfront in downtown Cape Town, has been a popular venue for many conferences and events since it opened in 2003.

Parks and reserves
South African National Parks runs the Karoo National Park near Beaufort West and the West Coast National Park near Langebaan. Both these parks are primarily concerned with the protection of the vegetation peculiar to the area. The land in the Karoo, for example, had been subject to decades of degradation because of sheep grazing and has been restored to its former condition. The West Coast National Park is popular at the onset of spring when the flower season gets under way.

The Bontebok National Park does not limit itself to the buck in its name, but also offers a variety of animals south of Swellendam on the Breede River. It is a popular camping spot. The national body also runs parks at Agulhas, the southernmost tip of Africa, the Wilderness area and the Knysna National Lake Area.

The most visited of all the parks is the Table Mountain National Park, which receives 4.2 million visits per year. The 25 000-hectare park is mostly free to access, with just three points charging entry fees. The University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of Business calculated that in the six years to 2004, the park had contributed R377-million to the national GDP. Some visitors climb to the top but, in 2006, a total of 780 819 people used the cable car.

The provincial body, Cape Nature, runs 42 reserves, many of which have accommodation for visitors. The Kogelberg, Hottentots Holland and Swartberg reserves span the top of mountain ranges and are impressively large, allowing visitors to experience a variety of fauna and flora. Marine reserves also fall under Cape Nature, such as the one at De Hoop, east of Cape Agulhas.

The national and provincial parks in the province have created opportunities for accommodation providers on the edges of the parks and in surrounding towns.

A recent trend has been for private game farms to start offering the Big Five experience relatively close to Cape Town. Sanbona, near Barrydale, Fairy Glen and Aquila private game reserves are three of the closest, with the last named being less than two hours’ drive from the centre of Cape Town. Further north, the luxurious Bushmans Kloof Wilderness Reserve offers a close-up view of ancient rock art in the Cederberg Wilderness Area.

Routes unlimited
As part of the increased awareness of the power of the tourist dollar, many new routes have opened up in the Western Cape in recent years. Improved conservation awareness has led to an increase in the number of whales visiting the Cape’s shores, and this, in turn, has boosted tourism numbers, particularly in the Overberg region, with the town of Hermanus at the centre of the whale-watching industry.

Wine routes have proliferated with the traditional route around Stellenbosch having been joined by Franschhoek, Wellington, Robertson, Swartland, Olifants River, Worcester and many more further afield such as the Klein Karoo Wine Route, which encompasses the entire region and showcases 21 wine farms.

A joint venture between the Western Cape and Northern Cape provinces, together with Namibia, is promoting the Cape to Namibia Route. This encompasses a huge variety of locales and experiences, from leathershoe making, rooibos tea, wildflowers and succulents to craggy mountains, deserts and spectacular canyons. There is a brandy route near Worcester, and Oudtshoorn has decided to bundle a whole lot of exquisite experiences into one journey and have come up with an Art, Cheese, Chocolate and Liqueur Route.

History and culture
On a more serious note, visitors can also follow the sad history of slavery as it unfolded in the Cape. The Slave Lodge is located in the centre of Cape Town, while Moravian mission stations such as those at Elim and Genadendal, in the Overberg, were places of refuge for freed slaves. Robben Island has become one of South Africa’s most-visited sites since Nelson Mandela and his fellow prisoners were released.

Throughout the Western Cape Province there is evidence of the passage of man through time, from San paintings to the castle in Cape Town (which flies the flags of every nation that controlled the Cape) to the kramat of Sheikh Yusuf of Macassar, said to be the father of Islam in South Africa and dating back to the 17th century.

ONLINE RESOURCES
Cape Nature: www.capenature.co.za
Cape Town Routes Unlimited (Western Cape): www.tourismcapetown.co.za
Cape Town Tourism: www.capetown.travel
South African National Parks: www.sanparks.co.za
South African Tourism: www.southafrica.net
Tourism Business Council of South Africa: www.tbcsa.travel
Tourism Grading Council: www.tourismgrading.co.za