Knysna Tourism’s Board of Directors have decided to close its offices with immediate effect, following Wesgro’s meeting with Knysna Municipality on Wednesday, where it was agreed in principle that the Agency would take over the constitutional mandate for tourism promotion and destination marketing of the region, from November 1.

The agreement follows a series of engagements with Knysna Municipality and the Department of Economic Development and Tourism, who initially requested Wesgro to assist with the delivery of the mandate.

A non-negotiable condition from Wesgro in responding to this request from the Municipality is that the service is to be delivered with the support of the tourism industry of Knysna. The Agency has urged the existing Knysna Tourism Board to formally align with the Knysna Accommodation Association so that a fully representative industry advisory board can be constituted.

It is Wesgro’s intention that the relationship with this board will be governed by an MoU that will be signed between Wesgro and the industry, parallel with the Service Level Agreement (SLA) the agency would sign with the municipality. Both documents are currently being finalised.

Knysna Tourism was registered as a non-profit company, and began as the Knysna Publicity Association, founded during a public meeting on May 9, 1927. More recently, it evolved into a destination marketing organisation which received the bulk of its funding from the Council of the Knysna Municipality, which in turn assigned the company with the task of fulfilling its (the Municipality) constitutional requirement to promote tourism to the region.

According to Knysna Tourism Chairperson, Elmay Bouwer, the SLA between the Municipality and Knysna Tourism ended on June 30, and with no further funding committed for Knysna Tourism to continue operating, the acting Municipal Manager at the time requested that Knysna Tourism NPC become a service provider to the Municipality. This was to enable the Municipality to give interim funds to Knysna Tourism for the period until Wesgro takes over the tourism function on November 1, when the SLA between the Municipality and Wesgro will commence.

“On August 1, as requested, Knysna Tourism submitted a budget for operating costs to the Municipality, and kept the offices running in good faith, but no funding has been received to date. Yesterday, the Knysna Tourism Board made the decision that it was not acting responsibly by operating without the guarantee of any funding from the Municipality,” added Bouwer.

Numerous negotiations took place between the Municipality and the Board of Knysna Tourism regarding interim funding of the Knysna Tourism offices while a solution was being sought. Owing to broken undertakings by the Municipality, the Board, however, believes that the Municipality has negotiated in bad faith.

Despite recent additional financial contributions from members, Knysna Tourism is no longer able to fund continuing operations. The company’s directors have a duty in terms of the Companies Act 2008, to avoid trading in contravention of the Act. The Board therefore feels that it has no option but to order the doors of the tourism body to officially close.

According to Bouwer, the Municipality has now taken over the responsibility of running the Knysna Tourism offices themselves until November 1, and there will be a full handover by the Knysna Tourism board.

Wesgro CEO, Tim Harris commented: “We intend on signing a three year contract with the municipality in the upcoming weeks. We will aim to start delivering against this contract from November 1 – as per our mandate set out in the Wesgro Act. This will be similar to the tourism, trade and investment contracts we deliver against for municipalities like the City of Cape Town, Drakenstein and Saldanha Bay.”

The local tourism promotion work for Knysna and Sedgefield will be delivered on the ground from Knysna by a reconstituted team of staff. The intention is for the team to be led by an existing senior Wesgro staff member, who will relocate from Cape Town to Knysna to take up this designation.

Once the contracts are signed, the first order of business on November 1 will be to ensure the tourism office at 40 Main Road is open and ready to sell the destination as part of a renewed effort by the tourism industry, the municipality and Wesgro to promote Knysna as a destination and all its offerings.

“We believe we will be able to introduce a pilot initiative in the town from the beginning of November, subject to the finalisation of a contract with the municipality,” said Judy Lain, Wesgro’s Chief Marketing Officer for Tourism. “This contract will in no way affect delivery of our existing long-standing mandate to promote Western Cape tourism and, with it, every region, town and attraction across the province.”

James Vos, MP and Shadow Minister of Tourism for the DA, told Tourism Update that Wesgro had a very comprehensive marketing network, and could certainly contribute to Knysna from a strategic destination marketing enhancement point of view.

“Effective destination marketing and ensuring that tourism offerings are market ready are key considerations for any successful tourism growth strategy. Undoubtedly, Wesgro's track record and outstanding performance to market the province and certain locations as destinations of choice for various purposes provide massive advantages. It is important that the existing tourism network in Knysna forms part of the strategy going forward to market Knysna for both leisure and business tourism opportunities. I believe that Knysna has incredible tourism potential to advance business trading, and achieve market exposure of services and products,” added Vos.

In closing, Bouwer said: “The board is excited about working with Wesgro to market Knysna as a destination, and we are looking forward to capitalising on their expertise and knowledge of the industry as well as their international contacts.”