Have you voted for Cape Town?
2008-01-24 11:57
Cape Town - Have you voted for Cape Town yet?
The Mother City will battle it out with 67 cities across the globe to secure a spot on the new Monopoly World Edition board game.
Since News24's first report on the popular game, which will feature 22 world cities instead of the traditionally listed street names, Cape Town has already moved up three places to the 28 spot. Keep on voting, Cape Town!
Mariette du Toit-Helmbold, CEO of Cape Town Tourism lauded the new Monopoly Here and Now World Edition, soon to be launched by Hasbro, as an innovative and creative destination marketing tool.
Top travel destination
"Cape Town has raked in numerous accolades as one of the world's top travel destinations; in fact it has been rated under the top ten cities to visit for the last few years by the US Travel and Leisure Magazine," du Toit-Helmbold told News24 on Wednesday evening.
"I am confident that with the support of the media, Capetonians, the tourism industry and friends of Cape Town globally, we can feature on the board game.
"It will definitely contribute to Cape Town's destination ranking and create further international awareness of Cape Town's appeal as a hot travel and business destination," she added.
She urged all South Africans to vote for Cape Town: "It is an opportunity not to be missed and Cape Town Tourism appeals to the public and members of the tourism industry to go on-line and vote for Cape Town.
'Civic pride'
Du Toit-Helmbold added that it would be a great honour for Cape Town to be listed as one of the 22 international cities. "It will build civic pride and confidence in our destination, locally and internationally," she said.
Cape Town is the only South African city and one of only two African cities (the other being Cairo in Egypt) to make the list.
Paris is in the lead with 3%, followed by London, New York, Rome and Sydney. Cape Town is in the 28th position with 0.9%.
According to the Monopoly Vote website 68 cities have been pre-selected but the public can also nominate any other city - known as Wildcard cities.
The public can vote for their top cities online every day until 29 February 2008.
The 20 pre-selected cities with the highest worldwide votes will make it onto the board, whereas the top two Wildcard cities will be voted for from 1 to 9 March 2008.
Click here to visit the Monopoly site and register your vote.