The tourism industry is not without its challenges. Economic fluctuations, international geopolitics, pandemics and evolving traveller preferences can pose significant obstacles to DMOs. In this dynamic environment, Cape Town Tourism recognised the need for a strategic and adaptable approach to content creation and dissemination. Rhoda Davids shared insights on how Cape Town Tourism crafts interactive and engaging social media content, achieving remarkable results on a limited budget.

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Embracing a Strategic Content Approach: Purpose, Engagement, and Inclusivity

Cape Town Tourism has established itself as a leader in digital marketing, effectively leveraging a strategic content approach to drive tourism to the city. The DMO has demonstrated remarkable creativity and adaptability, utilising a range of content formats and platforms to engage diverse audiences and achieve impressive organic growth. The DMO produces content on five topics:

1. TravelWise: Sharing advice for travellers to explore Cape Town safely.
2. Neighbourhoods: Highlighting community activity and building local brand ambassadors.
3. Limitless Cape Town: Showcasing accessible tourism initiatives in the city, such as braille touch-points and Africa’s first-ever qualified blind tour guide.
4. Sustainable Cape Town: Demonstrating the city’s journey to becoming an eco-friendly destination.
5. Member Inclusion: Ensuring Cape Town Tourism member products and services are promoted.

Cape Town Tourism's digital content strategy stands as a testament to the organisation's unwavering commitment to effective storytelling and audience engagement. At the heart of this strategy lies a deep understanding of the interests of their target audiences. Cape Town Tourism recognised that successful content must be:

1. Purposeful: Content should align with Cape Town Tourism's overall marketing objectives, inspiring potential visitors and providing in-depth information to inform travel decisions.
2. Engaging: Content should be captivating and entertaining, showcasing the city's unique offerings and highlighting the authentic experiences that await visitors.
3. Inclusive: Content should cater to a wide range of travellers, including those with accessibility needs and those seeking sustainable travel options.
4. Mindful: Content should be sensitive to local perceptions and ensure that it accurately represents the diversity and vibrancy of Cape Town.
5. Responsive: Content should be timely and relevant, adapting to current events and trends to maintain top-of-mind awareness of Cape Town as a travel destination.

This strategic approach to content creation has enabled Cape Town Tourism to effectively connect with diverse audiences, fostering a sense of connection and inspiring wanderlust among potential visitors. This has been supported by encouraging cross-collaboration between departments, involving the entire team in marketing the destination.

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Embracing TikTok and Gen Z

Capitalising on the success of their content creation, Cape Town Tourism responded swiftly to emerging trends, such as the burgeoning popularity of TikTok. To understand the Gen Z demographic and create engaging content, they collaborated with Gen Z students studying digital marketing and filmmaking at local business schools, leveraging their creativity. This strategy proved fruitful, as Cape Town Tourism's TikTok channel amassed almost 82,000 followers in under two years.

Showing the authentic side of the destination alongside humorous messaging is central to the DMO's success on the platform, with TikTok being all about fun content that can go viral. Such a process requires being persistent and posting regularly as the content that gains traction can sometimes be surprising. This is complemented by using data to plan digital content and keeping informed of trending sounds so that these can be added as overlays to maximise the reach of the content produced.

Demonstrating their commitment to being adaptable and responding quickly to events, they captured the live reaction of the Rugby World Cup-winning South African team's arrival back to Cape Town, posting the raw footage onto social channels immediately. This video became their most viewed on TikTok, garnering tens of thousands of organic views overnight and showcasing their ability to capitalise on trending moments.

Website Redesign for Enhanced User Experience

Recognising the importance of a user-centric approach, Cape Town Tourism embarked on a comprehensive redesign of its website, ensuring the provision of additional functionalities that make the website accessible to all. The new website transitioned from an editorial-focused structure to a more user-friendly and intuitive design. The new, sleek interface is visually appealing and instantly engages users with an interactive 360-degree panorama feature showcasing five areas of the destination, fostering excitement about the destination.

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This redesign also prioritised member integration, providing seamless access to information and services for Cape Town Tourism's 1,200+ members through a portal where members can:

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• Manage their membership and update business listings, images and offers
• Access an insights dashboard showing revenue leads from Cape Town Tourism's website. This is vital given the need to have strong attribution modelling to show the value the DMO creates for members
• Receive all the latest industry news
• Access surveys and research decks

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Adapting to Challenges and Embracing the Future

Cape Town Tourism has demonstrated remarkable resilience in the face of challenges, including the COVID-19 pandemic. During this unprecedented period, the organisation maintained an active presence on digital channels, keeping Cape Town top-of-mind for potential visitors and ensuring that the city remained a beacon of hope and inspiration for future travel plans.

As the industry recovers and travel patterns evolve, Cape Town Tourism is poised to embrace new opportunities and expand its reach through several strategic initiatives:

• ‍Geographical Expansion: Targeting new tourism markets to broaden Cape Town's appeal.
• ‍Content Creator Collaborations: Partnering with influential content creators in key source markets to reach a wider audience and leverage their power.
• ‍Paid Media: Exploring paid advertising channels to complement organic reach, ensuring that Cape Town Tourism's social channels continue to grow and reach new audiences.
• ‍Focus on User-Generated Content: Continuing to harness the power of user-generated content to showcase Cape Town. Cape Town Tourism taps into locals' and visitors’ social media content through regular social tagging as well as various engaging photographic and video competitions run across platforms.