What wine is on your table?
Wednesday, 1 July, 2015
Wanda Augustyn, WineLand
Each bottle of wine that lands on a shelf, restaurant table or dining table is a marketing opportunity for the Western Cape.
The Western Cape has an incredible tourism offering and by identifying the tourism sector as a key potential job creator, the Western Cape wine regions have a good starting point already. Wesgro, the official Destination Marketing, Investment and Trade Promotion Agency for the Western Cape with new CEO, Tim Harris, at the helm of operations, will work closely with agriculture to boost the wine tourism offering even more.
“We have an incredible tourism offering in the Western Cape, and Wesgro is committed to ensuring a better spread of visitors throughout the province and throughout the year,” says the man who was born in Cape Town, but grew up in Kwa-Zulu Natal. “The biggest challenges facing destination marketing, however, are structural ones, the fact that we are a long-haul destination, the insufficient number of direct flights into Cape Town and the relatively small marketing budgets we have to promote the region with.”
With a new five year plan on the table for destination marketing, Tim is eager to share some of the key focus areas and explain where wine tourism fits into the overall tourism strategy. “We will focus on developing and promoting the destination locally and globally with an emphases on several niches including wine and cuisine, culture and heritage and cycling.
It incorporates a market selection coupled with an accessibility plan, the development of real time intelligence and a synchronised events calendar to drive geographic spread and activity all year round.”
With wine and cuisine being identified as a niche offering by Wesgro, Tim believes this can help to clearly define and differentiate the Western Cape on global platforms.
“Increasingly people are travelling to experience a destination’s unique offering in terms of food and wine. Wesgro will be working to increase the awareness of the fact that each of our five regions – the Cape West Coast, Cape Karoo, Cape Winelands, Cape Overberg and the Garden Route & Klein Karoo – and the City of Cape Town offer a unique, quality wine experience.
Smaller more inland areas in the Cape winelands often lose out on the many tourists coming to Cape Town, but Wesgro plans to collaborate more closely with egional tourism offices to promote and grow spread throughout the province. “Route development is definitely one way to promote visitor spread into regions like Robertson, Wellington and the Swartland. Events also play a major role in increasing tourist spread to all of our wine regions.”
Game changers for the Western Cape in terms of tourism are exciting. According to Tim, the Western Cape Government has identified the tourism sector as a key potential job creator over the next five years. To support the Province’s strategy, Wesgro is working on building a stronger regional identity, increasing the number of direct flights to Cape Town, co-ordinating regional events programmes to tackle seasonality and ensure regional spread, and ensuring better collaboration across the public and private sector.
“Over the next five years, we want tourism to create an additional 100 000 jobs in this sector and the wine tourism industry can benefit from a general growth in tourism spend. We believe that many of these jobs can be created in the wine tourism industry in accommodation, catering and restaurants. This will be accelerated if tourism experience can increasingly be enhanced with other offerings like olives and olive oil, processed fruit, artisanal foods and beer. The opportunity lies in packaging these tourist experiences in a way where the whole is worth more than the sum of the parts.”
Agriculture and wine tourism are the main pillars of the Western Cape economy, how can we forge closer ties with Wesgro?
Each bottle of wine that lands on a shelf, restaurant table or dining table is a marketing opportunity for the Western Cape. The stories evoked about the farm and the quality of the wine will define perceptions of our destination. Agriculture and wine tourism are already forged together. We now need to use this relationship as leverage for our regional marketing. Wine farmers can also in provide “agri-tourism” experiences by thinking about the lasting experiences and products they offer visitors.
Any thoughts on tourists from Africa and the potential of wine?
Our research into our regional partners in Africa shows that there is a high demand for top quality wines and wine experiences. Consumers from other African countries are increasingly being exposed to South African wines, with double-digit growth in exports to markets such as Nigeria, Kenya, Mauritius and Mozambique. African tourists who visit the Western Cape for shopping are increasingly getting good exposure to local wines.
Where do you think lies the business potential in the wine regions?
Collaboration across the sector can improve our offering. Product offerings should be diversified and additional activities, like cycling or walking routes, should be packaged together.
Biggest challenge in the global wine world?
Globally the biggest challenge is keeping costs competitive in the face of slowing growth in consumer incomes, led by a less dynamic performance by the Chinese economy.
Biggest challenge in the South African wine industry?
Facing down strong competition from other New World wine producers from countries like Chile, Argentina, France, Australia and New Zealand.
Strength of the wine industry?
Our wine industry has shown good resilience in recent years and successfully diversified into new markets in the rest of Africa while maintaining its position as a global competitor in Europe. The industry has shown strong growth over the past 20 years and has become the 2nd largest export for the region and 15th largest export for the country.
Your best wine moment?
My wife and my winter tradition of making sure we are in front of the fire on her family farm in Franschhoek with a bottle of red on the coldest evening of each year.