Our solution
Whythawk, in partnership with our economic development project, Business Beat, assembled a team of five experienced economic development consultants. Over a six-month period, we travelled all over the Western Cape, including Mossel Bay, Oudsthoorn, Barrydale, Saldanha, Malmesbury and Elim. We reviewed everything from “buy-and-braai” township restaurants, to developing hiking routes based on old slave escape trails in the Franschoek Mountains, to fishing and cultural arts festivals.
Our focus was on supporting historically disadvantaged communities as part of undoing the legacy of Apartheid.
We developed costed guidance for Western Cape Tourism officials, as well as structured methods for assesssing tourism potential. These ranged from the relatively straightforward, like marketing and branding support, to the significantly more complex, like building a paved road to Elim in place of the existing - and dangerous - gravel and rock route through the mountains.
Outcomes
This project became the foundation for the establishment of Business Beat as the leading economic development and support consultancy in the Western Cape. The systems and methodologies developed were core to our future processes.
In the Western Cape, tourism is now worth around 5% of the local economy and attracts more than 3 million visitors a year. Most people still visit the winelands or Table Mountain, but cultural tourism to historically disadvantaged areas or operators now account for an important component of the Cape economy.
