Cape Town has lost bids for more than 12 events in the past six months and two existing events have gone elsewhere because the city’s limited bidding budget does not allow it to compete against international destinations with stronger currencies.
Cape Town’s Directorate for Tourism, Events and Marketing executive director, Anton Groenewald, explains that the city often bids for events jointly with a sport code or rights holder. To secure an event and make it financially viable, the city often absorbs or defers upfront costs. “Exchange rate fluctuation impacts on our ability to bid because almost all competitive bids are in euros, pounds or dollars. This means that at the time of bidding earlier this year, the exchange rate was such that events and concerts at that time became financially unviable because the dollar or euro equivalent was more than we could absorb. Secondly, events and global brands are asking higher and larger fees because other city destinations are paying larger upfront fees to secure their participation. So a fee last year of R3,5m for an event has now increased to US$1,5m (R9,9m), because that is what another destination paid this global brand. We simply cannot compete at these rates. 
 “While Cape Town seems to enjoy international recognition and awareness as a destination, what we do not have is an increase in enquiries and how to convert this into purchases,” Groenewald also told the Cape Town Tourism AGM recently.
The Directorate, responsible for Cape Town’s event and destination marketing, has an annual budget of R560m compared with the City’s total annual budget of R27bn. Cape Town Tourism, tasked with leisure tourism marketing, has a budget of R42,9m for 2013/2014, of which R37,5m is a grant from the City and R5,8m is self-generated. However, some R20,5m will be spent on salaries alone, with marketing to be funded from the remaining R22,4m.  Despite three visitor information centres having closed in January this year, CTT still employs 80 staff across 13 centres. No retrenchments were made despite a 10% cut in the grant income last year. Instead it increased its membership revenue by 47% and kept costs under control. 
This meant CTT had to work smarter, says new ceo, Enver Duminy. A new visitor services strategy saw the introduction of a new mobile team and technology solutions. Its website traffic grew by 18% to over 1m visits last year and its blog visitors grew by 882% year-on-year. Successful social media campaigns reached 1,5m people, media exposure reached another 30m and a television campaign reached 304m people across six continents.
Despite CTT having interacted with 3,2m visitors via its information centres and  website, booking enquiries represented only 1% of all enquiries. What is needed, says Groenewald, is improved understanding of consumer behaviour, better collaboration between the City and corporates; ongoing commercialisation of Cape Town Stadium; and increased involvement in arts and culture events. He suggests that a strategic conference should be held among all stakeholders. 
The City this year sponsored 40 events, processed 2 000 more event permits and 14 000 film permits, worth R3,5bn in business for the film industry. 
In 2014/2015, the Volvo Ocean Race returns to Cape Town.  Part of the World Triathlon Championships and the African Nations Championship (CHAN) football tournament will be hosted in the city, as will the first World Travel Market Africa Travel Week. The City will spend R40m on 85 projects making up the year-round World Design Capital 2014 campaign.

• New CTT Board members elected during the AGM include: Thompsons Africa CEO, Linda Pampallis; V&A Waterfront strategic marketing executive, Chantelle Cole; and Tsogo Sun Operations Director, John van Rooyen.