Research on Cape Town is improving with various research projects under way by different institutions, including several universities, the City itself and Cape Town Tourism, Marisah Nieuwoudt of Cape Town Tourism told a recent industry workshop on research and data collection in the city.

Nieuwoudt added that the City was also working with several other cities around the world, looking at best practice and putting together criteria that can be used to measure the destination.

 “We also have to make sure that we can share the research with local industry so that the private sector can gear itself up to deliver that which the tourist market requires.”

Also speaking at the workshop, Dr Theuns Vivian of the City of Cape Town said improving the quality of tourism statistics in Cape Town was a critical element to growing the number of international visitors.

According to Vivian, more information is required not only from a local perspective but also on regional level if tourism is to continue growing year on year. “We cannot afford to be complacent,” he said. “As a destination we are growing and compared to the rest of the country we are doing okay, but in global terms we are not growing significantly.”

He said while destination awareness existed it was necessary to look at how information was being collected in Cape Town. “We also need to understand what the real impacts and issues are contributing to us not growing more than what we are at present.”

Vivian said without the right information at hand it would be impossible to achieve real growth in global terms. “We need to focus more on data collection and real reading of that information to know what needs to be put in place to make Cape Town an even more popular destination choice.”

It was also important to survey the non-visitors, said Vivian. “Only once we know why people are not choosing our destination can we really address it. It is not good enough to say Cape Town is a long haul destination as there are many in the world. Research and data are the keys to developing a multi-pronged approach.”

Vivian said it was important to educate the local economy to attract the right market at the right time of year and tourism data would go a long way in achieving this.

Experts agreed that having one comprehensive source of data available to industry at large would go a long way in ensuring all tourism businesses were working towards the same goal of delivering to tourists’ needs.

At the same time, said Vivian, it was important that local businesses started monitoring their own establishments to add to city and provincial research figures as it would strengthen the knowledge base.

“Research in Cape Town is ongoing and with the information we get from a national level we have a handle and grasp of some things and so we have answers to certain things but definitely not everything. We need to improve this if we want to be competitive globally.”