Wine tourism in South Africa is at a tipping point as the industry unites behind a new industry-driven national wine tourism marketing strategy, says the author of the plan and tourism marketer, Mariëtte du Toit-Helmbold.

Launching the plan at the inaugural “The Business of Wine and Food Tourism” conference at Spier wine estate near Stellenbosch on Tuesday, she said she was encouraged by the message of support and commitment received from Government.

“Today is the start of a new journey. The strategy is being developed as a dynamic and practical plan. Our immediate priorities are to get buy-in from all role players on the strategy and to finalise the implementation plan with input from and alignment with Government.  The draft budgets are there. (We need to)  set up the administrative support structure within VinPro, who have committed R700 000 bridge funding to get the strategy launched and implemented.” She said March next year was the deadline to raise the rest of the funding for the first three years of the implementation plan.

She said a global, three-year wine and food tourism campaign is being proposed, jointly funded through public and private sector contributions and steered by a Wine Tourism Council elected from representatives from private and public sector. “The first priority of the Council will be to finalise and agree on targets, deliverables and a three-year action plan and then to allocate the three-year plan budget."

“A practical Wine Tourism Project Team needs to be appointed to report to the Council and then importantly, align everything we do with SA Tourism’s marketing plans and determine the wine tourism brand and message, to raise funds and to work with the SA Wine Routes Forum to identify and map the wine tourism levers/icons within each wine region, including the Northern Cape, the Garden Route and the upcoming experiences in KZN.”

Next on the agenda would be to establish a neutral wine tourism digital marketing platform with interactive website, blog site, activated social media platforms and fresh content providing links to all the wine regions and routes for cross marketing purposes.

Details of a new website for wine tourism would appear on all wine bottles produced in South Africa.

Next on the agenda would be the development and launch of South Africa’s first dedicated wine and food tourism campaign to be showcased nationally and internationally using primarily digital marketing.

A wine tourism marketing kit would be developed to educate the trade and the hospitality industry.

A wine tourism research programme and wine tourism career paths would be developed in association with educational bodies and research departments of national and regional tourism authorities.