Responsible and sustainable tourism will be Cape Town’s ‘next normal’ in the wake of COVID.
This is according to tourism stakeholders at a webinar hosted by the City of Cape Town on Wednesday (September 23).
Cape Town was familiar with implementing responsible and sustainable practices, said the city’s manager of destination development, Dr Theuns Vivian. He explained that the hospitality and tourism industry had already made many of these changes during the city’s water crisis (2015-2018).
“It is the ideal time to draft new messaging to highlight the city’s commitment to sustainable practices while also reminding our residents and visitors that it is our ‘new normal’,” he said.
Theuns listed the priority areas on which the city would be focusing its responsible tourism approach:
- Conserving water
- Efficient use of energy
- Reducing and managing waste
- Buying responsibly
- Supporting business development
- Developing skills
- Building communities
- Universal access
Cape Town would be working toward a collaborative private- and public-sector roll-out of these responsible tourism principles and put them into practice, said Theuns. “We want to reposition Cape Town as the world’s leading city for responsible tourism.”
