WesternCape Tourism Minister Alan Winde is pushing for the speedy implementation of a new efficient destination-marketing model so the region may benefit from the current window of opportunity created by the Soccer World Cup.
 
He proposes a single tourism marketing strategy for the province – a single Destination Marketing Organisation (DMO) operating under a new trading name that will be responsible for the marketing of the province, regions and cities within the Western Cape – as well as a single tourism brand for the destination.
 
He proposes that a board of 16 members representing local, regional, provincial and national tourism authorities will head the DMO and oversee the implementation of the new strategy.
 
The provincial government will be the sole funder of the new DMO's operational budget. Municipalities will contribute financially to the DMO's implementation of the single tourism marketing strategy. The City of Cape Town will contribute financially to direct marketing activities of the DMO.
 
Instead of each municipality marketing itself to the world, each will have its own business plan with clearly defined roles, responsibilities and goals in support of the DMO's activities..
 
Winde also proposes that the provincial tourism head office – in future boldly branded as ‘Tourism HQ’ – be shifted from its current location in the Cape Town CBD to the V&A Waterfront in order to be more visible and accessible for tourists.
 
The MEC delivered his overhaul plan to mayors, municipal managers and tourism officials in Cape Town on July 13 and gave them two months to comment on the model. He said the boards of Cape Town Routes Unlimited (CTRU) and Cape Town Tourism (CTT) had already done so.
 
The process now requires a Memorandum of Agreement to be finalised between the provincial government and the City of Cape Town; engagement with all municipalities; the development of a single marketing strategy by an independent facilitator; and drawing up a business plan for the new DMO and for the municipalities. Amendment legislation is to be drawn up within the next three months.  A Service Level Agreement for the 2010/2011 financial year will be finalized outlining the City of Cape Town's financial contribution to the new DMO.

At the moment, CTRU and CTT market the city and region in different ways, causing confusion in the international tourism and travel industry. Winde said the region lacks a "comprehensive, co-ordinated and collectively defined marketing strategy". He said there was "absolute duplication of national, provincial and municipal marketing resulting in taxpayers' money being spent three times at the same place."
 
The latest restructuring plans follow the deliberations of a combined provincial and Cape Town City task team set up by the MEC in an attempt to find a "politically immune" solution to the marketing of the region, which has been plagued by political infighting and has undergone several structural overhauls in the past decade.  In 2008, a Democratic Alliance-led Cape Town municipality withdrew its 50% funding from a then ANC-led province's CTRU. Instead it mandated CTT, its own member association, to market the city. The political situation changed when the DA won the province during the last general election and Winde made it his top priority to unify tourism marketing efforts.