Deputy Speaker, the joint promotion of the three cities of Cape Town, Johannesburg and Durban under the Three Cities Alliance agreement pools the resources of these urban centres into a national partnership to promote the major urban tourism offerings of the country. In light of the previous questions to the Minister of Labour, this may create the unfortunate impression that the DA is in alliance with the ANC, but that is perfectly fine. In Tourism, we would like everybody to be in alliance. As research by the United Nations World Tourism Organisation has shown, up to 80% of international tourists prefer to experience a country through its cities.
Firstly, the Three Cities Alliance aims to meet this need and attract visitors to all three of the participating cities by combining efforts and resources, yet showcasing each city's uniqueness. In addition, these three cities represent some of the anchor products of destination-south- africa.co.za and should provide visitors with a fairly balanced view of what the country has to offer.
A second objective of the Three Cities Alliance would therefore be to prevent any tourist from returning home with a skewed perception of our urban offerings. At a more practical level, this will mean that the three cities will, inter alia, co-ordinate their events calendars. This is very important, especially when it gets to seasonality, and they offer short city-taster packages, but also integrate their marketing efforts.