Abstract
A respondent-completed questionnaire in Cape Town, South Africa was used to check how the activities that tourists enjoyed in Cape Town relate to how they perceive this destination using brand descriptive variables (brand essence, brand image and brand loyalty). 200 questionnaires were received for bivariate and multivariate analyses. This study finds that although tourists found most activities in Cape Town enjoyable; nature and outdoor, food and wine, and shopping enjoyment have more impact in determining the general experience satisfaction of tourists, than beach, and surprisingly, history and cultural activities. Nonetheless, tourists generally perceive Cape Town quite positively. From analyses, this study strongly suggests that the brand position statement for Cape Town should revolve around unique and diverse tourists' attractions in Cape Town, and the memorable experience with which tourists go home from Cape Town. The brand position statement should be linked to Cape Town tourism integrated marketing communications. This study can assist tourism business owners in Cape Town to evaluate and improve tourism offerings to meet the expectations of visitors, contributing to visitors forming a positive perception towards Cape Town. The findings have implications for similar destinations in the developing economies.
Highlights
Wesgro, the Destination Marketing, Investment and Trade Promotion Agency for the Western Cape labelled the brand promise of the Western Cape as ‘be inspired and discover new experiences’ (The Western Cape destination marketing, investment and trade promotion agency of South Africa, 2013)
This study can assist tourism business owners in Cape Town to evaluate and improve tourism offerings to meet the expectations of visitors, contributing to visitors forming a positive perception towards Cape Town.Integrated marketing communications in Cape Town can be positioned as consistent and coherent forces to reinforce behaviour, or as an avenue of achieving mutual understanding between Cape Town and her publics in order to justify and preserve its asset of reputation (O’Sullivan, 2010)
Rajesh (2013) suggests that overall destination loyalty is influenced by the perceptions that tourists have before coming to the destination, the perceptions that tourists have towards the destination image as well as the overall satisfaction of experience received while at the destination
Summary
The Destination Marketing, Investment and Trade Promotion Agency for the Western Cape (one of South Africa’s nine provinces, with Cape Town as the capital city) labelled the brand promise of the Western Cape as ‘be inspired and discover new experiences’ (The Western Cape destination marketing, investment and trade promotion agency of South Africa, 2013). Cape Town, in 2014 topped the list of New York Times’ ‘52 top places to go in 2014’ (New York Times, 2014) and received an 8.2% increase in visitor arrivals to the city in January 2015 in comparison to the previous year (The Western Cape Destination Marketing, Investment and Trade Promotion Agency- South Africa, 2015). Cape Town is South Africa’s second most visited city, after Johannesburg, with an estimated 389 012 visitor arrivals at the Cape Town International Airport in July 2015 (Airports Company of South Africa, 2015). The tourism industry has been acclaimed as a major contributor to global economic development and serves as a source of income generation for many developing countries (Wijethunga & Warnakulasooriya, 2014), including South Africa. The South African tourism industry in 2014 had contributed over 9% to the country’s Gross Domestic product (GDP) through its direct and indirect impacts and provided over 1.4 million employment opportunities (South African Tourism, 2015)
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