Cape Town Jazz Festival Ranked in World Top 10

The Cape Town International Jazz Festival has been ranked in the Top 10 in Melody Trip's ranking of the world's top 100 music festivals. The recently published Jazz Festival Report for 2007 was presented to the City of Cape Town Mayoral Committee on Wednesday 17 October, by Rashid Lombard, CEO of espAfrika, the founders of the Jazz Festival that has been described as "Africa's Grandest Gathering".

Councillor Simon Grindrod, Mayoral Committee Member for Economic, Social Development and Tourism said: "I would like to congratulate Mr. Lombard and his team at espAfrika for a job well done. Events like the Jazz Festival bring direct benefits to our residents in the form of tourism and job creation, and therefore have my full support. Tourism is labour intensive and one of the biggest multipliers for job creation. Jazz is well entrenched in our Cape Flats communities and is a vital glue that binds some of the poorest of Cape Town's communities. There is an emerging culture of township Jazz that I am very excited about. We should, to a greater extent, promote our rich culture and heritage."

The report, prepared by the Centre for Tourism Research in Africa, highlights the Festival's economic and social development contribution to Cape Town. It attracted 33,356 jazz fans and created 2,750 jobs for local people. Most of the fans came from neighbouring countries which confirms and reinforces Cape Town's image as the most welcoming African
city. This was emphasised in a study done by the Centre that found Cape Town to be 'a truly African city'. The number of visitors citing the Jazz Festival as the primary reason for visiting Cape Town was 76%. The contribution to the City economy was R137 million GDP. For every R1 of public money spent on the Jazz Festival, an additional R31 was spent by the private sector. The Jazz Festival spent the money received from the City mostly on music training and development. This comprised music related workshops, exhibitions and conferences for the music industry and for emerging artists.

Mansoor Mohamed, the City's Executive Director for Economic, Social Development and Tourism says he wants to encourage more events similar to the Jazz Festival that increases the number of visitors to Cape Town and South Africa: "Once they get a glimpse of Cape Town, they return with their families and friends to visit our beautiful province and the rest of South Africa. It is encouraging that most of the overseas Jazz Festival visitors came from our three largest tourist markets - the UK, USA and Germany. The equivalent advertising value of the media coverage generated by the festival is estimated at R150 million and this is a remarkable return on the City's contribution of R700 000-00 plus related services. Events like these help put Cape Town on the global city map. Cape Town is an iconic brand that should be used to attract more visitors to South Africa."

Issued by:
Communication
City of Cape Town
Tel: 021 400 2201

Media Queries:
Councillor Grindrod
Cell: 084 200 6060