CT's wave of celeb success

2007-04-23 10:18

Theuns van der Westhuizen

Cape Town - The Cape tourism industry is on cloud nine - the city's reputation as the playground of the worlds rich and famous is increasing by the day.

Not only will Cape Tourism's hospitality industry soon play host to Oscar-winner Forest Whitaker, but one of America's most popular travel programmes is presently also being filmed here.

An excited Mariette du Toit-Helmbold, head of Cape Tourism, said the tourism and hospitality industry were planning to show the Whitaker family a side of Cape Town usually hidden from the world.

"We will give them a first-hand experience of our beautiful city and its residents."

The Whitakers will meet the ordinary people of the city, its communities, delicious food, music and unspoilt nature.

The Cape Town Jazz Safari, meetings with the foremost winemakers and visits to Cape Point, Table Mountain, Boulders Beach and Robben Island were also on the itinerary.

Where in the World is Matt Lauer

Du Toit-Helmbold said the world was looking for authenticity and even the famous sometimes wanted to leave the well-trodden paths to reach the heart and soul of places they could escape to.

She added that the international film and media industry were also in love with Cape Town.

An NBC film crew was presently filming scenes for the travel programme Where in the World is Matt Lauer?, one of the most popular series of its kind in the US. The programme is similar to Amazing Race and Survivor.

The presenter, Matt Lauer, visits five countries in five days and the destinations remain a secret. Not even the producers of the different days know which countries will be visited.

The journey, which starts on April 30 and ends in Cape Town on May 4, was expected to be followed by more than five million viewers a day - while everybody guesses where Lauer will go next.

Final destination in travel programme

According to Du Toit-Helmbold, Cape Town hit the jackpot with the filming of this programme, especially since the city was the final destination.

Cape Tourism and its members were working in close relationship with the producers to reach the most outstanding places, Cape Town's characters and its well-known personalities, she said.

- Die Burger