City of Cape Town’s Six Pillar Content Partnership Programme Celebrates Authentic Voices and Outstanding Results

The City of Cape Town’s Content Partnership Programme, powered by the Destination Marketing Unit, continues to grow as a pioneering model for destination marketing. Launched at WTM Africa in 2024, the programme has just completed one successful year—reshaping the way we promote the Mother City to the world.

A New Model for Destination Marketing

The goal of the Destination Marketing Unit is to promote Cape Town as the premier African city to visit, live, work, study, play and invest.

The Content Partnership Programme is designed to amplify the real stories already being told by the people who live, work , study and play in Cape Town – across our mountains, coastlines, cultural hubs, design studios, universities, and communities.

Rather than trying to produce more content in isolation, the programme partners with local attractions, businesses, institutions, and content creators, who share existing or organically created content throughout the year.  This content is then amplified through paid digital campaigns especially on Meta platforms – to key international markets, translated and targeted by interest, language, and geography.

From Zurich to Sydney, London to Rio, Cape Town’s message is reaching the right audiences – driven by authentic, location-based storytelling.

What Makes It Work: Content Sharing and Partnership Visits

Each partner provides a few pieces of content per quarter – photos, videos, or articles – that they already have or can easily create as part of their day-to-day operations. These are then boosted to relevant audiences globally, and performance feedback is provided after each quarter.

But beyond the digital, the partnership visits have become a defining element of the programme’s success. Held monthly, these visits offer partners the opportunity to host the wider network – creating space for richer storytelling, deeper understanding, and stronger connections. They allow the group to go behind the scenes – gaining insight into each partner’s unique offering and operations. The visits are also a key driver of fresh content: attendees are encouraged to capture and share moments, often generating spontaneous, authentic material that feeds directly into the content pool. Just as importantly, these gatherings foster collaboration – through informal networking, conversation, and on-the-spot ideas for future posts, content and joint initiatives. Over the last year, they have grown into one of the most valued and energising components of the programme.

The 2024 Content Partners

For 2024, the Content Partners comprised an aray of attractions, businesses, institutions and content creators:

The Big 6: Cape Point, Groot Constantia, Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens, Robben Island Musseum, Table Mountain Aerial Cableway, V&A Waterfront. Cape Town Tourism, City Sightseeing Cape Town, City of Cape Town Environmental Management Department, Fernandes Lilykou (Ferli Voyage), Tracey Saunders (Heart of Theatre), NgenaEkasi Langa Tours, Relax Spa Groups Africa, Shark Explorers, Two Oceans Aquarium & The D School of Design at UCT.

Campaign Performance and Brand Exposure

Together, the combined campaigns from these partners delivered exceptional results across digital platforms. In total, the campaigns generated over 37.2 million impressions, reaching more than 32.4 million people around the world. Over 8.3 million video plays were recorded, with 1.6 million engagement actions taken, and ad recall of 477,000, and over 81,000 clicks outbound clicks.

These results were not only quantifiable in performance metrics but also in media valuation terms. Based on a combination of campaign results, CPM benchmarks, brand lift modelling, and media equivalency to traditional placements such as outdoor and print, the estimated brand exposure value delivered by the paid ads component of the programme was between R3.5 million and R5.5 million.

Celebrating Excellence: The 2024 Content Partnership Awards

To mark the success of these results, and the end of the 2024 partnership cycle, a special awards & recognition ceremony was held to celebrate the contributions of each partner. All participating partners received a commemorative souvenir, and the following awards were presented for excellence in content and performance:

Best Content Awards

These awards align with the six pillars of the programme, recognising outstanding storytelling in each theme. While not all pillars had a winning entry this year, four categories were awarded:

  • Best VISIT content: The Big 6
  • Best LIVE content: City of Cape Town’s Environmental Management Department
  • Best STUDY content: The Hasso Plattner D School of Design at UCT
  • Best PLAY content: Shark Explorers

Best Performance Awards

Recognising top-performing posts across key performance metrics:

  • Highest ThruPlays (complete video views):
    Relax Spas Group – 44,571 full video views for their wellness tourism post
  • Highest Engagement (total interactions):
    Ngena Ekasi Tours – 526,351 engagements for their catamaran sunset video
  • Highest Reach for a blog article post:
    Tracey Saunders – a reach of 2,729,317 for her piece on local theatre culture
  • Best Partnership Visit (as voted by the partners):
    Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens – praised for its immersive nature experience and guided exploration
  • Highest Overall Reach (cumulative reach across all campaigns):
    Fernandes Lilykou (Content Creator)–  with an impressive 4,710,166 people reached globally

Looking Ahead: The 2025 Content Partners

At the awards ceremony, the partnership also bid farewell to the 2024 partners. As part of the model, the partners rotate each year, to give opportunity to new partners, while maintaining long-term relationships with legacy partners, known as anchor partners.

The programme officially welcomed the 2025 Content Partners at a signing ceremony the following day and look forward to beginning this exciting new journey together.

The 2025 partners are:

Cape Tourist Guides Association (CTGA), Red & Yellow Creative School of Business, Greater Tygerberg Partnership (GTP), Cape Town Kayak Adventures, Epitome Studios, Gecko Digital, Cape Town Creative Acadamy, UCT International Academic Programme Office, Siviwe Tours, Prashad Café, The Baxter, Cape BPO, Artscape Theatre, Louise Howlett (Cape Town Concert Series), Jeep Tours Cape Town, City of Cape Town Parks & Recreation, NAC Helicopters Cape Town, Cape SideCar Adventure, DHL Stadium, and then our anchor partners (long term partners) V&A Waterfront, Groot Constantia, Cape Point, Robben Island Museum, Kirstenbosch National Botantical Garden, Table Mountain Aerial Cableway, Two Oceans Aquarium & Durbanville Wine Valley

As the Content Partnership Programme enters its second year, the Destination Marketing unit remains committed to amplifying the voices, stories and experiences that define our city. Through collaboration, creativity and authentic connection, we are not only showcasing Cape Town to the world – we are building a community of storytellers.  We look forward to working with our 2025 partners to grow this momentum, spark fresh narratives, and continue positioning Cape Town as the most inspiring African city to visit, live, work, study, play and invest.