The board of Cape Town Routes Unlimited (CTRU), the tourism destination marketing organisation for Cape Town and the Western Cape, has announced the appointment of Calvyn Gilfellan as its new Chief Executive Officer. He had been acting in the position since March 2007.

Prior to joining CTRU in 2004 as Executive Manager: Tourism Operations, Gilfellan was director of tourism in Mpumalanga. He holds a master’s degree in geography and is a doctoral candidate at the University of the Western Cape. He was previously a lecturer in socio-economic geography at UWC.

In his new role, Gilfellan will be leading CTRU with a team of seasoned travel marketing specialists in building the profile of Cape Town and the Western Cape as a tourist destination of choice. With two newly focused marketing channels covering the domestic, African, Middle Eastern and Asian markets, and the wider international tourism market including Europe and North and South America respectively, the board announced the appointments of Itumeleng Pooe and David Frandsen as executive managers.

Pooe, who will take responsibility for marketing in South Africa, Africa, the Middle East and Asia, comes from the Franschhoek Valley Wine Tourism Association, where as CEO, she ran a varied and intensive programme to broaden consumer support. In the more than two years in this position, her initiatives succeeded in attracting established and emergent wine drinkers, as well as newer audiences with interests in literature, the arts and artisanal cuisine.

The new international marketing executive manager focussing on Europe and North and South America, is David Frandsen, who has also been with CTRU since 2004. He has served in various marketing capacities and has been running the Integrated Marketing Services portfolio for the past 18 months. Frandsen also has a strong background in eco-tourism and has helped to build the visibility of the Western Cape in the fast-growing environmental tourism arena.

CTRU board chairman George Uriesi says the appointments represent one of the last steps in the process of turning the organisation around since the appointment of the board in June 2007 by Western Cape Minister for Finance and Tourism Lynne Brown, and follow a good 2007/2008 summer tourism season for the Western Cape, when taking the short term performance indicators for air travel and selected iconic attractions into account.

“We have assembled a core of highly experienced travel experts, all of whom we believe will add considerable value now that a stable working environment has been established at CTRU.  We have worked closely with our new CEO and international marketing manager and have first-hand experience of their skills.  We have also witnessed Itumeleng Pooe’s outstanding work in promoting Franschhoek.

“We are confident of their ability to advance the Western Cape’s position as a leading travel destination and to immediately begin capitalising on the opportunity of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. They are well equipped to exploit the potential of the region working with the business sector and the general public, while tapping into special interest areas such as heritage, the environment, wine, the arts and outdoor activities,” says Uriesi.

Gilfellan will lead a series of carefully conceived campaigns on the domestic and international front. A R6m six-month domestic tourism programme targeting primarily the Gauteng market, is to be launched shortly.  Developed by TBWA\Hunt\Lascaris, it is intended to build both off-peak and peak season tourism to the Western Cape. It involves an intensive advertising initiative in mainstream print and electronic media and an experiential campaign involving virtual Cape cafes in popular shopping malls. 

CTRU is also participating in international travel shows in Europe, the Middle East and Australia, and is currently running a joint marketing agreement with leading UK-based travel operator, lastminute.com that digitally targets travellers from the UK, US and Germany. Initiated earlier this year and scheduled to continue till May, the on-line campaign garnered more than 1 414 532 page impressions in just 44 days and looks set to achieve a broad global reach.

Uriesi says that with an improved infrastructure and experienced management in place, the new board has brought continuity to the CTRU and put the disruptions of the past behind it.

“The organisation has been re-engineered and is now focused exclusively on marketing the Western Cape while outsourcing all non-core activities.  We have a fully-functioning and effective organisation in place.  We have aligned ourselves with world-class service providers and have taken decisive and inventive steps to maximise our limited spend. We are already achieving encouraging results. While CTRU continues to be funded by the Provincial Government of the Western Cape, we are still to finalise our financial relationship with the City of Cape Town. However, we remain confident that given the significant progress we have made, the City will see the value of continuing to invest in CTRU,” Uriesi said.