FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
30 MAY 2020
Durban Tourism Launches
“Virtual Durban Excursions”
In a bid to keep the Durban destination top-of-mind for tourists as the world grapples with the COVID-19 pandemic, Durban Tourism presents the ground-breaking “Virtual Know Your City Campaign” which starts in the beginning of June.
The aim of this campaign is to connect with Durbanites, South Africans and an opportunity for the world at large to re-discover the Durban destination and virtually re-connect with the Durban destination in anticipation to what they can explore live when leisure travel is permitted.
The “Virtual Know Your City” will showcase attractions, experiences and tourist activities which, over the years, have made Durban a destination of choice globally. The campaign will take its digital visitors on a virtual journey of Durban’s hidden gems and this will be activated on various social media platforms of the Durban Tourism and mainstream TV channels.
The COVID-19 pandemic has permanently altered the way the world does tourism. From hopping onto planes to visiting attractions, the post COVID-19 tourism landscape will demand that we adapt to the new ways of doing tourism.
“Over the past two months of Lockdown, we have had to quickly adapt to the rapidly-changing demands of our tourists, both locally and globally. Because of restrictions in movement, the virtual experiences have been embraced as the most reliable way of enjoying and showcasing destinations and their offerings. As we build towards full sector recovery, we want to ensure that we are both relevant and competitive as a destination,” said the Deputy City Manager for Economic Development, Mr Phillip Sithole.
“This campaign focuses on the domestic market particularly on Durbanites because it is our contention that many locals in our City and South Africa are yet to fully experience the offerings of Durban as a tourism destination. Therefore, we believe that the recovery of the sector will, initially, depend on local visitors to the various attractions. This campaign aims to achieve exactly that. The only way we are going to encourage visitors from outside our boundaries and borders to visit Durban, is by having a continuous showcasing of the destination and re-discovering their City as tourists through the digital platforms,” continued Sithole.
The “Virtual Know Your City” campaign is a collaborative effort involving Durban Tourism, product owners and stakeholders in the City’s tourism sector. It is as a direct result of the ongoing engagements between the City and a cross-section of tourism stakeholders which, among others, led to the crafting of the existing Tourism Recovery Plan for the City.
This campaign, will amongst other things, showcase marine and aquatic experiences; hidden gems; history and heritage; arts, culture and adventure as well as tourism routes. The campaign will be run on all Durban Tourism’s social media platforms and select traditional media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Another component of the Virtual Durban Excursion campaign to be rolled out is the Durban Influencer Virtual Tour. This sub-campaign will feature Durban’s foremost entertainers including Zakes Bantwini, DJ Cndo and DJ Sox, to mention but a few. These stars will be proudly taking our visitors on a visit to Durban’s attractions as well as hidden gems, all the while giving commentary on what the attractions have to offer, but still spreading the message as we grapple with the COVID-19 pandemic.
For this sub-campaign, Durban Tourism has partnered with the MTV Base Channel who will follow these artists as they visit different sites. “A critical part of this virtual tour is the participation of upcoming local artists, who will be paired with established local artists and take part in showcasing their art through virtual concerts and other activities that will be live streamed in various digital platforms as part of the Virtual Know Your City campaign,” said Sithole. The Durban Influencer Virtual Tour kicks off on the 4th of June.
We invite all our clients to join us on the excursion as we explore Durban on the hashtags of:
#KnowYourDurban #MyDurban #AmazingDurban #DurbanHasMore #RediscoverDurban #ThisisDurban
ENDS
Issued by the eThekwini Municipality’s Communications Unit.
For media enquiries contact eThekwini Municipality’s Spokesperson Msawakhe Mayisela on 0609664220