Cape Town tourist operators can now determine who is visiting the city, how much is being spent and what attracts visitors as a new pass system based on Swedish technology becomes operational.
Called "The Cape Town Pass", the system is based on Citybreak, a booking and tourist convenience service developed in Sweden and now used in a number of cities, including Singapore, Sydney and London.
The system is based on what tourists in Europe have come to expect from tour operators and agencies there, say local operators. For a minimal sum a tourist can buy a pass that entitles him or her to certain discounts and other incentives when visiting places of interest or restaurants and hotels.
Michael Linell, MD of The Cape Town Pass, says the backbone of the system was developed in Sweden in 1998 and it is used as a booking system throughout the world. It is also in use in SA, at Stellenbosch Tourism and the Nelson Mandela Bay (Port Elizabeth) Tourist Office.
Linell says while the backbone was developed abroad, the software to drive the card readers to be installed at 50 sites was developed by Johannesburg company Virtual Card Services.
"Our card readers are quite unique as they can be used to read normal credit cards, plus they can read The Cape Town Pass cards. While the credit card function operates as normal, The Cape Town Pass function only needs to be downloaded once or twice a day and that saves vendors phone call time," he says.
Linell says for the first time tour busses operating in the Cape Town area can now accept credit card payments because of the wireless version of the reader.
The Cape Town Pass can be purchased from either its Web site, appointed domestic and foreign travel agents and appointed resellers within the greater Cape Town area. It comes in one, two, three and six day passes with the latter costing R125.
Local resellers will have special printers installed to print the card. The printers come from Altech Card Solutions, which also wrote the software to drive them.
Information from the card readers is transmitted to a central database in Sweden and the tourist operators have access to that information.
"A tour operator can receive full demographics on the tourists dealt with and can fine-tune their marketing and service offerings," Linell says.
"About 10 000 Cape Town pass cards have been printed. The service is offered to domestic and foreign tourists."
Minister of tourism and environmental affairs Marthinus van Schalkwyk gave The Cape Town Pass the thumbs up yesterday, saying: "With SA being rated as one of the most successful tourist attractions in the world, it is vital that we start to offer visitors products like The Cape Town Pass, which are easy to use and have a lot of value."
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