Cape Town has long been a favourite with digital nomads and the city was recently listed #42 on the ‘Best cities for remote working’ list, alongside countries such as Indonesia, Germany and Argentina by Big 7 Travel, a travel website, with an online community of 2.5 million people.
Targeting digital nomads as part of our overall Destination Marketing Strategy will become part of the City’s new international campaign when the time is right and when it is safe to do so, said the City of Cape Town’s James Vos in a statement.
Covid-19 has changed the way we work, where working from home has become part of our everyday. And this puts Cape Town in a prime position to cater to the changing needs of a global workforce.
The City’s Enterprise and Investment team has incorporated this position into their strategic marketing approach known as the Six Pillars: Visit, Live, Work, Study, Play and Invest in Cape Town.
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“Given the challenging travel landscape created by the pandemic, we need to get smarter and innovate our hospitality sector by also focusing on remote workers so the sector can benefit from this growing remote work trend with Covid-19 protocols in place,” says Vos.
Some of the things that we encourage the hospitality sector to consider implementing, will be finding ways to attract Capetonians as well as others in our country, who usually work from home offices, to change their environment when it is safe to do so with Covid-19 protocols in place.
These remote workers could work in spaces where there is access to a day-room, a pool, breakfast, lunch, parking and wi-fi. For the long-stay digital nomads, the sector could consider revised rates and "home away from home" type packaging.
The exchange rate also goes a long way towards making Cape Town an affordable luxury destination for international workers (without displacing local jobs) for up to 90 days as permitted by South African immigration regulations. Current visa free countries include some of our key source markets such as Germany, UK, France, the US and more.
Long-stays can help to support local economies that have been decimated due to the impact of Cvoid-19. Through the City’s Tourism Task team that I convened last year to address recovery measures, we will engage industry on this new opportunity.
Workers have realised that they can work from anywhere. With so much space and natural beauty, why not Cape Town!
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