NEWS
THE NEWSPAPER
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First Attraction In SA To Receive WTTC Safe Travels Stamp The V&A Waterfront joins Stellenbosch, as well as an international list of 80 top travel destinations and 1 200 companies around the world to be awarded the specially designed Safe Travels stamp, which is awarded once all health and hygiene protocols have been implemented. The stamp will allow travellers and other travel and tourism stakeholders to recognise destination authorities and companies around the world that have implemented health and hygiene protocols aligned with the WTTC’s Safe Travels Protocols. By implementing best practice safety measures, we can get back to business. The City of Cape Town has written to national government to request the resumption of leisure travel to safeguard thousands of jobs. The unfettered reopening of travel and tourism sectors is crucial to saving this vital employment sector.
Photo: V&A Waterfront - Photo Credit: Cape Town Tourism
“The V&A Waterfront remains a key tourism hub for Cape Town as it is often one of the first places that visitors go when arriving in the city. “I want to congratulate the CEO, David Green, and his team for taking proactive steps to continue offering a safe experience for visitors and adhering to the strictest hygiene regulations. We hope that leisure travel will be able to resume as soon as possible as the industry is the backbone of our local economy, having contributed more than R18bn in 2018. Cape Town is clearly taking the necessary safety steps to welcome the return of local and international travellers once the worst of this pandemic is over,” said Executive Mayor Dan Plato.
“Our local economy is facing its biggest threat in recent decades with the tourism industry especially hard hit. We must be allowed to get back to work, particularly in the tourism, hospitality and related sectors. Hundreds of thousands of jobs are on the line and we cannot afford to wait any longer. I believe that we can get on the road to readiness and recovery, but only if we reopen all sectors and implement the protocols to keep ourselves and others safe,” said Alderman James Vos, Mayoral Committee Member for Economic Opportunities and Asset Management. As soon as the borders open, after the worst of the pandemic is over, Cape Town will be ready to safely welcome international visitors to our shores again and remind visitors of our reputation as Africa’s Leading Events and Festival Destination.
Beyond Lockdown Expedition
Incredible Landscapes, Cultures & Experiences Offered By Mother Africa (Continue from page 1) Their focus will capture everything from Road Tripping, Conservation and Adventure, to the unique Characters found within these ‘Moer-And-Gone’ communities in faraway places, and they believe the way to regenerate jobs and opportunities will be through creating crackerjack media exposure for these off-the-beaten-track destinations. Along the way, the team will engage with colourful local characters to assist in creating engaging and unique content, and thus convince the general South African public to pack their vehicle and visit them as soon as travel restrictions are lifted. “Spending your Rands in South Africa is what will make a difference to these communities, and we want people to know that you can have world-class, unique and globally relevant travel experiences right here in Mzansi! Our expeditions always include some inspirational feats of human endurance, and this time around we want to take these adventures and weave them into the local folklore of the area … maybe it will be an endurance river swim in search of a mythical water serpent, or a darkzone trek on the trail of a desert djinn, maybe an ascent up a snowy peak to confront your own inner guru ...,” Jacques continues. The Beyond Lockdown Expedition is scheduled to leave Cape Town in the beginning of August 2020 and follow a clockwise route throughout the nine provinces (Western Cape, Northern Cape, Free State, North-West Province, Gauteng, Limpopo, Mpumalanga,Kwa-Zulu Natal, and Eastern Cape) of South Africa. Some of the activities they are planning include: spearfishing & kreef diving, tracking pangolins in the desert, SUPing the Gariep Dam and sleeping on a remote island, scuba diving, hot air ballooning, trail running, mountain biking, whale/shark snorkeling, and abseiling - to name just a few. The key deliverable from the Beyond Lockdown Expedition will be professionally produced and widely distributed media exposure. This will be disseminated through the extensive #SocialMedia Networks of both Peter Van Kets and Jacques Marais,
Photo: Beyond Expedition Series - Photo Credit: Jacques Marais
as well as through the wide-reaching networks of various sponsors and partners. “Once our special brand of road-trip stories have been packaged, these riveting tales will be shared across not only the afore-mentioned electronic channels, in a range of newspaper and magazine print publications, on podcast, and as short, festival-style adventure films. In the end, it will be this heady blend - created by the Adventure, The Characters, and the Destination – that makes these nine stories worth telling, and worth hearing. Our sponsors, Isuzu SA and Dunlop SA and SA Tourism will add huge depth to the media reach,” Jacques concludes.