Destination Marketing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

Destination Marketing - Essay Example This tourist destination is balanced with primary, secondary and tertiary economic activities as well as a skilled workforce that immensely contributes to the growth of this city. The city itself is comprised of world-class infrastructure, abundant natural resources and ready access to global markets which makes it easily accessible to other markets. According to the Western Cape Business (2009), "the Western Cape forms a highly competitive investment destination and exporting platform and has shown growth rates consistently higher than the national average, contributes close to 15% of the country's GDP and is home to nearly 10% of its population." Business and tourism in the Western Cape are booming as a result of many factors which will be fully discussed in the second part of this analysis. According to the information obtained from the Western Cape Business Guide (2009), "the growth rates in the region have consistently outperformed those of the country as a whole and the region attracts 16% of South Africa's total foreign direct investment." The region also has vast natural resources that are attractive to both international as well as local tourists who take pride in savouring some of the finest resorts that offer the best environment to the holiday makers. Despite the realities presented by the economic slowdown, 2008 remained a buoyant year for the South African tourism industry (Vivian Warby 2009). Statistics obtained from an article entitled 'Tourist arrivals remain buoyant,' by the mentioned writer indicate that the tourism minister is somewhat satisfied with the rate of tourist arrivals in the country. The Minister said the latest available figures for foreign arrivals, for the first 10 months of 2008, showed a strong increase in arrivals of 5.4% from January to October (Vivian Warby 2009). Whilst the arrivals from North America were reported to be stable in the above article, the arrivals from Australasia were up by 6.3% and arrivals from Middle East were up by 5.9% (Vivian Warby 2009). However, there has been a slight decline in the tourist arrivals from Europe and Southern America and this can be attributed to some other factors such as the global economic decline which has not spared the other entire industries world wide. There are also some factors that affect the development of tourism in this destination though they may not yield a very heavy impact on the industry. Social factors are often seen as a threat to the development of the industry in this region where crime is rampant and the unsuspecting tourists are often targeted. Crime such as murder, drug abuse as well as robbery is very common in South Africa and this is a major impediment that often distracts the efforts to fully market the region to the international community. Indeed, the region has many attractions which can make a great change if fully utilised.2. "A SWOT analysis is a useful instrument for helping managers to identify internal strengths and weaknesses of a business and external opportunities and threats facing it," (Strydom J. p 31). Basically, SWOT stands for strengths (S), weaknesses (W) while on the other hand the external environmental factors are regarded as either opportunities (O) or threats (T). This analysis is very important to marketing managers as