The local daily Star reported that the total turnover of the wine industry in 2003 amounted to 10.6 billion rand (about 1.6 billion US dollars), of which 4.2 billion rand (about 640 million dollars) was derived from the wine tourism industry.

A study by the South African Wine Industry Information & Systems found that excluding tourism, the wine industry contributed 16.3 billion rand (2.47 billion dollars), or 1.5 percent, to the country's gross domestic product in 2003 and approximately 11.4 billion rand (1.73 billion dollars) of this remained in Cape Town and the Western Cape province.

There was, therefore, a real obligation to drive transformation in the wine tourism sector, Noki Dube, the chief executive of CapeTown Routes Unlimited, said last week at a wine tourism workshop.

This agenda included community involvement, skills transfer and capacity building, ownership ratios, overall fit into local economic development planning and targeted domestic market focus, Dube said.

Cape Town and the Western Cape were already members of the Great Wine Capitals, which included the regions of Melbourne, Bordeaux, Porto, Bilbao-Rioja and Florence.

This network served to encourage international winery tourism as well as economic academic and cultural exchanges between famous wine capitals.

Dube said the challenges and opportunities were the creation of a distinctive image for South African and Western Cape wines associated with tourism, the linking of the winelands experiences to the authentic experiences of the townships.

They also include the incorporation of wine tourism into the African cultural experience and the continual creation of sustainable jobs in the wine industry.

(Xinhua News Agency July 18, 2005)