WESTERN Cape Tourism and Finance MEC, Lynne Brown, has invited local business to work in partnership with government in strengthening the province’s tourism industry and its embattled marketing organisation, Cape Town Routes Unlimited (CTRU). Speaking at a Back2Business event in Cape Town last week, she said: “Last year CTRU took a lot of pain (sic) and one of the issues it was criticised for was not branding Cape Town properly. Here’s an opportunity to strengthen CTRU. It’s no use to complain from the sidelines.”

She said the tourism industry in the Western Cape was still “deeply untransformed” (demographically). She said partnerships between government and industry were needed to tackle issues that damaged the industry, such as crime, power cuts or perceived high prices.

She said the province in 2007 had a bumper tourism year (but failed to provide supporting statistics). Working in its favour were the weaker rand  -  which gave the region a competitive edge over its international competitors -  and R14bn worth of direct spend in tourism in 2007, including major expansion at Cape Town International Airport.