The cities of Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg has formalised a ‘Three Cities’ alliance at this year’s Indaba, addressing the global shift toward urban tourism and the pressures being felt by their respective visitor industries.

The three year Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the cities will result in joint marketing and development programmes,  aimed at establishing the urban dimension of South Africa’s visitor brand and generating demand specifically for each city.

The MoU covers the broad spectrum of tourism marketing and development and comprehends joint initiatives in both domestic and international markets.

“Resources are finite and in order to compete effectively, the three cities have agreed to pool assets and resources to meaningfully address the demand challenges in a post GFC world and altered visitor conditions,” said Phillip Sithole, CEO of Durban Tourism.

While there a number of developmental programmes within the destination marketing companies, the key focus has been in developing an international demand generation plan. This has been achieved and execution has commenced with the on-line component of the integrated strategy.

The three cities are currently planning their co-operative domestic campaign, which will be launched within the next few months.