Cape Town Tourism held its 12th AGM at the Century City Conference Centre on Thursday 13th October 2016, shining a spotlight on the organisation’s achievements of the past year and highlighting the theme “Reinvention is the key to remaining relevant.”
The event was very well-attended with CTT members, media, tourism partners and the CTT team attending the formalities and enjoying festivities afterwards.
Setting the scene
Nicole Biondi, Cape Town Tourism’s former Strategic Communications and Content Manager, sparkled as the MC for the evening.
Cape Town’s newly appointed City Councillor, Eddie Andrews opened the event with his address and report from the City of Cape Town highlighting the importance of Responsible Tourism in the City. He shared the City’s belief in partnerships and their new mission statement: “Making progress possible. Together”
Chairperson’s Report
The Chairperson of Cape Town Tourism, Enver Mally, invited the members of Cape Town Tourism to be more involved with by working with Cape Town Tourism and ensuring that membership works to their advantage. He highlighted the success of the Board Development Fund that had seen four tourism SMME’s receiving funds and support over the last two years. He thanked the Board, CTT Executives and team members for their hard work and emphasized the importance to Reinvent. He says: “we cannot stay static, especially in this industry and this is what we need to embrace.”
Financial Report
Brett Hendricks highlighted the salient points of the Financial Report. Highlights included Cape Town Tourism’s unqualified audit and the continued improvement in the company’s liquidity. We’ve seen an increase in total of 8.6% in revenue growth and an increase in membership acquision.
The financial statements can be viewed here.
Fiduciaries & Voting
Michael Evans of Webber Wentzel took members through the resolution and were unanimously adopted. A video clip of the four nominees for the Board 2016/2017 played before voting, to assist members with their votes.
We welcome Brett Hendricks, General Manager, Thebe Tourism Group; Chantelle Cole, Executive Manager, Strategic Projects and Brands, V&A Waterfront andJulie-May Ellingson, Chief Executive Officer, Cape Town International Convention Centre on their elections onto the CTT Board for 2016/2017.
Looking Back
Cape Town Tourism’s CEO, Enver Duminy, highlighted the growth areas of the year under review and thanked the board and his team for the work done in the 2015-2016 fiscal.
Some highlights:
- Domestic arrivals have increased YOY by 20.3%, international arrivals by 8.6% and regional by 20.3%.
- The top tourist attraction for 2016 was the V&A Waterfront, followed by Table Mountain and Cape Point.
- We have 233 new members, bringing the membership to 1283 in total – revenue has been increased by 29% YOY
- In terms of equality and transformation, we maintained our level 4 BBB-EE status as a 100% contributor.
- Cape Town has been rated as the 2nd most halaal friendly city in the world.
Looking Forward
The highlights in the coming year focus on the Visitor (at the Centre), Member Vitality (with the new membership model which launched earlier this year) and a High Performing Team (incentives and training).
Additionally, CTT purchased a system, ForwardKeys which assists companies in travel to anticipate global analytics which will be shared with all Cape Town Tourism members.
In keeping with our theme of reinvention, we have launched our refreshed brand, the revised membership model, the recreated interactive website, the upcoming reimagined visitor guides and the reshaped annual report.
You can view the Annual Report for 2015 – 2016 here.
Digital Disruption
Our keynote speaker for the evening, “a very ordinary guy” Michael Jordaan, venture capitalist from Montegray Capital and wine enthusiast. He presented a very insightful, informative and mind boggling presentation which spoke to the how we are living the future. He also emphasized that South Africa is the world in one country and we need to capitalize on it.
Michael Jordaan spoke about how digital disruption has already happened. Think Uber, Airbnb, Netflix, Google, Facebook, Skype and WeChat. We need to stop waiting for it to happen and realise that it’s already here and we should live it and adapt to the changes, in our everyday lives and in our businesses.
It’s been a successful year and as Cape Town Tourism we are proud to have been able to share our highlights and successes with you. #CTTAGM
To view the images from the event, click here.