New partnership for wine tourism
2005-09-29
THE Paarl Tourism Association will soon share premises with Paarl Vintners in the Wine Tourism Information Centre at 86 Main Street.
In the wake of the municipality having withdrawn its funding from the Paarl Tourism Association in order to pursue what has been termed as the generic marketing of the Drakenstein area as a whole, with the emphasis on local economic development, the member-driven Paarl Tourism Association will continue in its efforts to promote Paarl as an attractive tourist destination, offering an information service for visitors as well as becoming involved in other projects to focus attention on Paarl.
The Association is currently working on three projects that promote Paarl, encouraging visitors to “stay-a-little-longer”.
In collaboration with the organisers of the ‘Drie van die Bestes’ and other Christmas shows that will be hosted in the Amphitheatre on Paarl Mountain, they are putting together a database of accommodation packages in various price categories to entice amphitheatre show-goers to ‘stay a little longer’.
The new Paarl Mall is also a project where the Tourism Association is hoping to be involved in terms of offering an info station and they are already in contact with the project co-ordinators in this regard.
The upcoming Paarl Rock Handcycling Tournament that is taking place next year under the patronage of Ernst van Dyk, local Paarlite and paralympics gold medallist, hopes to attract international visitors to the region and Paarl Tourism is talking to the organisers of the event about how they can help attract visitors to Paarl to ‘stay a little longer’.
The E-commerce platform will be further developed in collaboration with Abrie Coetzee, who created and hosts the ‘Paarlonline’ website.
The content will be improved and expanded upon and the database aspects will be further developed to include a search and select function.
Search engine optimisation will play an important role in getting the name of Paarl to pop-up on more web-search engines. In this regard, exco member Johan Huisamen of Chain-Reaction, a Paarl-based business strategy and facilitation company, will provide valuable
input.
Says chairperson Deser‚ Orrill-Legg: “Membership is open to all businesses and even individuals can join the Association.
“Any of the projects we are spearheading involve networking and relationship building. By growing our membership base we can have a greater impact on the market.
“We have a great product to offer visitors and business partners alike, but we need support from our members in order for these projects to bear fruit. A little bit of enthusiasm and co-operation can go a long way.”
Paarl Tourism is currently recruiting an Information Officer to help them in their efforts to promote tourism to the town.
The Tourism Association will officially move into the new premises on 1 October. Telephone numbers will be redirected as of that time and the post box, website and email address remain the same.
Whilst each entity still retains its position as an independent body, the shared premises and proposed marketing alliance between Paarl Vintners and Paarl Tourism reflects the symbiotic relationship between the two major economic forces in Paarl, namely the wine industry and the tourism industry.
“When it comes to promoting the town and the region, it is almost impossible to say where tourism ends and wine tasting or selling begins.
“Tourism to this region is in fact ‘Wine Tourism’, one of the major new trends in international tourism in recent years,” said Orrill-Legg.
“Paarl Vintners and Paarl Tourism hope to make the most of this alliance by carrying out joint-promotions at trade shows such as Indaba or the Getaway shows and other gourmet food and wine exhibitions.”
The new executive committee elected at the recent AGM comprises of 14 individuals from a broad range of tourism and related businesses in Paarl, who have volunteered to give their time and energy to help the Association achieve its stated goal of promoting Paarl as a tourism and business. Each committee member has a specific portfolio covering his or her area of responsibility within the ExCo.
These are Membership Liaison (Ivana Decker and Clyde Williams), E-Commerce (Johan Huisamen and Maika Goetze), Events (Isabeau Botha, Catherine Snel, Anthea Kotze), Info Office (Sandra Lotz of CEO of Vintners), Media Liaison (Deseré Orrill-Legg, Jens Kozany), Municipality Liaison (Gerard Frater), Printed Material (Louise Kotze, Carol Maggs and Elizma Hanekom).
A municipal representative has also been invited to serve on the Committee.
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