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The Cape Metro area is a major tourism node with a large number of tourists passing through and
either staying or moving on to other destinations in the region. Coastal tourism and scenery, including
natural attractions, are considered an important part of tourism in the area. Marine tours form a
relatively small part of the overall tourism activity in the area, but with adequate advertising, the
potential is believed to exist. The area provides excellent viewing of whales including year-round
viewing of Bryde’s Whales in False Bay and year-round viewing of Heaviside’s Dolphins on the
Atlantic coast. These attractions would be enhanced by the presence of other major marine
attractions such as dolphins, seals and penguins, seabird colonies at Cape Point, plus generally good
seabird viewing. Sea conditions are favourable, particularly in False Bay. The main base for marine
tours is the Waterfront which specialises in historical/cultural tours to Robben Island and harbour trips.
Hout Bay is the second main base, from which a number of tours leave, although none specifically
focuses on whales. The False Bay coast has the lowest demand for boat tours and boat-based whale
watching at present. The opinion is generally that current demand for whale watching is adequately
catered for by existing operators, but that the potential for growth in demand is large. The Cape
Metro’s probably has sufficient potential to support two additional permits, e.g. at Hout Bay and Kalk
Bay. The high tourist traffic at the V&A waterfront suggests that additional permits could be feasible
in future. The permit at Simonstown is currently sufficient to match demand there, and success of the
two operators at Gordons’ Bay still needs to be monitored. As with the remainder of the Cape Metro
area, it is believed that sufficient marketing would be expected to increase demand and thus the
viability of operators there.
The Agulhas coast is highly dependent on coastal tourism and attractions. It provides top quality
whale-viewing, though does not feature quite as strongly as the Cape Metro in terms of overall marine
diversity. Sharks are an added attraction in some areas. The area already benefits from the
marketing of Hermanus as the best land-based whale watching area in the world. Demand for tours,
and specifically boat-based whale watching is highest in the Walker Bay area and centred largely on
Hermanus as base for trips to neighbouring areas in Hawston, Kleinbaai and Gansbaai. This demand
is driven by these areas being the recognised centres for shark and whale tours in the region.
Though this demand is described as high, the number of operators currently in operation is
considered sufficient to capture this, particularly due to the seasonal nature of demand for these
tours. It was felt that current excess demand in-season may be a temporary result of some operators
running at their maximum efficiency. Concerns were raised about the existence of too many boats
should other operators be allowed into the area. Although Struisbaai could potentially benefit from an
additional permit there, especially since some of its inhabitants have recently lost their line fishing
rights, the limited tourist numbers in this area do not constitute a ready market. Conditions may
improve as the more visitors are attracted to the area by the recently-proclaimed Agulhas National
Park.
The Garden Route is currently a heavily marketed tourism region and most operations do very well.
The area provides top quality whale viewing in conjunction with a high variety of marine attractions
and superb scenery. Marine tours were described as being an important and growing attraction in the
region. Marine tours play less of a role in the overall tourism market in Knysna than in other areas
where sea access is easier such as Plettenberg Bay and Mossel Bay. Knysna is characterised by
tours focused on travelling within the lagoon and are prevented from easy access to the sea by the
well known Knysna Heads. Plettenberg Bay has the highest demand, and was described as having a
high diversity of marine attractions. This section, which is one of the longest boat-based whale
watching areas, is shared by two permitted operators, although all three operators do reasonably well.
Demand for boat-based whale watching was described as high and sufficient to support the two
permitted operators. Any excess was more than captured by the third unpermitted operator. Mossel
Bay is described as experiencing a steady increase in demand but was still well catered for by the
existing operator. Tourism agents consider the potential for more operators to be good, partly due to
a perceived need for more “soft adventure” activity such as whale watching to cater for more mature
clients, who form a large part of the current market. The remainder of the market for marine tours
were well served by typical adventure activities such as shark cage diving which has also been
undergoing an increase in demand. However, operators stress that the density of whales is not high
enough to support more vessels, and this is backed up by the fact that whale densities in this area are
already thought to have been reduced by these activities. Thus despite the locally high demand and
high quality of the resource, increase in the number of permits in this area would have to be carefully
considered and is probably not advisable at present.
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