Fragmented destination marketing appears to remain Cape Town's fate.After more than a decade of various institutional attempts to unify tourism marketing under one strong and effective organisation, the City of Cape Town now has effectively destabilised Cape Town Tourism by cutting its funding and establishing its own rival destination marketing directorate. 
Over the past 15 years or so the city and province’s destination marketing has gone through tumultuous changes, often it seems driven by politics and egos, none of it conducive to getting on with the job of placing Cape Town at the top of the world when it comes to tourism. A huge failure is that seasonality, the reason why most airlines can’t afford to serve Cape Town directly all year round, hasn't improved over the past decade. According to the Airports Company SA, the difference between summer and winter arrivals remains 200 000 passengers.
First there was Captour, then came the Western Cape Tourism Board, Cape Metropolitan Tourism and a string of local tourism bureaus, one of which was Cape Town Tourism. When Cape Town Routes Unlimited was created to end the fragmentation, CTT (with support of the City) decided to go it alone as voluntary membership association, reflecting the industry’s lack of confidence in CTRU. Duplication of efforts ensued. Party politics then saw the City withdraw its funding from CTRU, instead mandating CTT to do its destination marketing. CTRU earlier this year was absorbed into Wesgro in an attempt to align tourism marketing with trade and investment promotion. 
In the latest upset, the City - in what appears as a vote of no confidence - has cut CTT’s grant funding from R42m to R36m, despite CTT having posted a surplus of R2.2m in 2010/11. The cut effectively means CTT’s operating budget has shrunk from R48m to R39,8m for 2012/2013. The budget blow comes two months after the start of CTT’s financial year. With contractual commitments already made and expenses incurred, this means CTT now faces a loss of R2,1m and possibly staff retrenchments long-term. Confusingly, a new service level agreement with City specifies that CTT will no longer be responsible for “destination marketing”, but only for “tourism marketing”.
Clarity between what is “destination” and what is “tourism” marketing “is a debate that is unfolding between the City and CTT, says Anton Groenewald, Executive Director of the city’s new Directorate: Tourism, Events and Marketing  (TEAM). His understanding is that CTT will be responsible for purely tourism-related initiatives internationally and domestically, while his directorate’s mandate is broader, bridging city departments responsible for tourism, place marketing, events, arts & culture and strategic assets.
Groenewald says his directorate has an operational budget of R500m and a staff of 200, including top brand managers headhunted from industry. Amongst others it is responsible for promoting events at Cape Town Stadium, the World Design Capital 2014 campaign and a new Cape Town Arts Festival. It wants to develop new events and enter new markets in Brazil, Russia, India, China and Turkey.
But why the need for another tourism body when Wesgro and CTT are already doing the job? Cape Town Mayor, Patricia De Lille, says the City wants to broaden its appeal beyond leisure tourism to business, events and academia, a strategic policy direction contained in its five-year integrated development plan. “I am pleased that CTT initiated a series of international campaigns emphasising the broadening of our offering, however, it is clear that a great deal more work needs to be done to further entrench our position in this regard. The City is ready to take the lead in making sure that we leverage our assets to broaden our offering. That is exactly why we created TEAM.” She says the City cut CTT’s funding because it is itself investing more in events and strategic assets, but wants to work with CTT. She says instead of renewing CTT’s funding annually as to date, the City is keen to sign a three-year agreement that will provide CTT with funding certainty and help improve its long-term planning and sustainability.
CTT CEO, Mariette du Toit-Helmbold, admits the year ahead holds much uncertainty as CTT re-designs its future partnership with the City and seeks clarity on its role and responsibility within the City’s broader destination marketing agenda. Meanwhile, she says, CTT’s Board is negotiating with the City in the hope it will assist to make up the budget shortfall. CTT receives about 80% of its funding from the City, while the remainder is made up of membership fees and own-generated funds. Du Toit-Helmbold says of the overall budget, only about R10m is available for tourism marketing; the rest is used for operational expenses and visitor services. She says CTT will continue to roll out its tourism marketing and visitor strategies, but some plans will have to be delayed or adjusted. CTT plans to work smarter focusing more on digital marketing and industry partnerships. She claims CTT’s current marketing campaign is successful, resulting in R45m return-on-investment in media coverage, a top social media profile and pioneering digital marketing initiatives. “We believe that CTT is the best agency to deliver visitor and tourism marketing services for Cape Town,” she maintains.