Cape Town sets its sights on booming Chinese travel market

21 November 2025

The City is set to expand on its marketing campaign targeting Chinese travellers following the first two phases that resulted in millions of views within the key Asian market.

According to recent data from the UN’s World Tourism Organisation, Chinese travellers were in 2024 the biggest outbound spending category by country, spending approximately US$250 billion, far ahead of second-ranked US foreign travellers who collectively spent about US$177,8 billion.

Speaking after a trade mission in Shanghai, Mayoral Committee Member for Economic Growth, Alderman James Vos, said boosting Cape Town’s profile in China’s outbound travel market would be a game-changer for the Mother City’s tourism industry and wider economy. The trade mission was facilitated by Wesgro and included meetings with South African Tourism, potential investors, and attendance at the Shanghai Global Food Trade Show.

‘Cape Town is an incredible city with a wide variety of attractions and experiences for travellers of all interests and backgrounds. However, last year, the whole of South Africa saw only 41 651 Chinese tourists come to our shores, a fraction of the approximately 100 million outbound Chinese tourists in 2024. That’s why I’m encouraged to see that our destination campaign ads, which we essentially test ran with minimal budget on WeChat, China’s dominant instant messaging and social media app, received over 20 million impressions in just one year (September 2024 to October 2025).

‘The next marketing stage will build on this foundation and move from a single platform to a broader digital presence.

‘We will now move to expand our reach to other major social platforms in China, where we will leverage our growing library of Chinese language content, including articles, brochures, and destination videos. This is in line with a survey by marketing experts, China Trading Desk, who found that Chinese outbound travellers are tech-savvy and reliant on social media platforms for inspiration, trustworthy tips, and guidance on finding destinations that are immersive, authentic and celebrate local communities,’ said Alderman Vos.

The City is also set to launch another campaign on social media channels in India. This comes after City destination ads between February and July this year resulted in 130 million impressions and a reach of 68 million in the country. This was alongside an Out Of Home digital billboard initiative in prominent high-traffic business and leisure areas of Mumbai.

‘With the Trusted Tour Operator Scheme (TTOS) implemented by the Home Affairs Department, regions such as Cape Town stand to gain masses of first-time and repeat travellers from countries, such as China and India, where the TTOS is available. Forecasts predict that outbound travel from the two countries will hit a combined 240 million people by 2028. When considering that domestic and international visitors directly supported over 106 000 jobs in 2024, if Cape Town could take a bigger chunk out of these countries’ tourism markets, we could potentially sustain thousands more Capetonians. We are working hard to make this real,’ said Alderman Vos.

End

Published by:
City of Cape Town, Media Office