Mayor Hill-Lewis hails record safety effort behind festive tourism success
10 January 2024
‘We are so thrilled that Cape Town has had a booming festive tourism season, and it is still booming now, with hundreds of thousands enjoying our pristine beaches and tourist attractions. While the tourist peak season is not yet over, we can already see a strong tourism recovery in Cape Town, with over 31 000 passengers passing through the airport daily. This brings job-creating economic growth to our shores, which is ultimately why we focus on this so much - we want to get more Capetonians into work.
‘My thanks goes to all the teams who helped deliver a successful festive period. Together we have achieved the City’s largest ever safety deployment of over 4 000 personnel to keep Cape Town safer for locals and visitors alike, alongside mountain patrols and a road safety presence. Our beaches have also been 100% open and clean for visitors, without a single closure. Importantly, we have also not had a single closure of any of our recreational vleis,’ said Mayor Hill-Lewis.
The Safety and Security Directorate deployed personnel to address various enforcement priorities, including to specific beaches and at special Beach Joint Operational Centres (JOCs).
‘Our Festive Season Policing Plan has included vehicle checkpoints on major routes to beaches, the use of tech such as CCTV and drones, and a big volunteer effort from Law Enforcement, Fire & Rescue Service, and Disaster Risk Management volunteers. In our daily general enforcement efforts, hundreds of arrests were made and contraband confiscated. On New Year’s Day, our LEAP officers confiscated four firearms in less than 20 hours. We also witnessed a massive firefighting response to the wildfires in the South Peninsula, as well as numerous structural fires over the festive season,’ said Alderman Smith.