Cape Town Wins Second Successive Travel Industry 'Oscar'

For the second year running, Cape Town has been chosen by the World Travel Awards as Africa's best travel destination.

Mansoor Mohamed, Executive Director: Economic, Social Development and Tourism in the City of Cape Town, accepted this top global tourism industry award (the “Oscar” of the industry) in mid-May 2009 along with Mariette du Toit-Helmbold, CEO of Cape Town Tourism, on behalf of Cape Town and all its partners.

“This award reaffirms Cape Town’s global positioning as a leading tourism destination,” Mohamed said.

“This recognition is very important for Cape Town because it helps to strengthen Cape Town’s tourism competitiveness. It will also enhance the city’s important strategy to position Cape Town as a global events city. The award will also help to make Cape Town a destination of choice for the 2010 FIFA Soccer World Cup.

“Cape Town has built and maintained excellent tourism infrastructure. The city is constantly enhancing Cape Town’s tourism assets, and we are building skills and improving opportunities in our tourism sector. All of these efforts support the city’s key strategy of infrastructure-led economic growth.”

The World Travel Awards were established in 1993 to acknowledge, reward and celebrate achievements in all sectors of the global travel industry. Travel professionals and their clients regard the awards as the best endorsement that any travel product could receive.

Globally, it is considered the Oscars of the travel industry. The spectacular awards ceremony was held at the Inkosi Albert Luthuli Convention Centre (ICC) in Durban.

Cape Town Tourism was a finalist in two further categories, Best Tourism Organisation in Africa and Best Marketing Campaign in Africa for its "Live Cape Town, Love Cape Town Campaign".

More than 200 organisations were nominated in 75 categories for the Africa region, including airlines, airports, hotels, car hire, destinations, resorts, spas and travel agencies.

The World Travel Awards were established in 1993 to acknowledge, reward and celebrate achievements in all sectors of the global travel industry:

• The awards ceremony is regarded as the very highest achievement that a travel product could ever hope to receive.
• Thousands of votes are cast by travel professionals from 170,000 travel and tourism companies and organizations in 160 countries.
• Votes are cast globally by fellow industry professionals in 919 different categories.

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