Wine tourism to aid industry transformation, diversity

THE wine tourism industry means more to South Africa’s tourism industry than just visits to wine farms and drinking wine in restaurants. It has the potential to further South Africa’s transformation agenda and diversify the tourist experience, says Noki Dube, ceo of Cape Town Routes Unlimited. Dube was speaking at a wine tourism workshop last week where she highlighted that, based on data from the South African Wine and Information Systems, SA’s wine industry made R10,6bn in 2003. More than 75% of that came from wine tourism. “There is a real obligation on the wine industry to drive the transformation agenda in the wine tourism sphere and to come up with innovative and practical strategies to achieve this goal,” said Dube. And while wine tourism contributes to tourism spend in the billions; increasingly tourists are seeking a diverse experience. It is for this reason that wine tourism cannot exist in isolation, said Dube. Wine tourism should be linked to other experiences such as township, eco and health tourism. (Darren Sandras)