Cape Town Routes Unlimited, the destination marketing organisation for Cape Town & the Western Cape (… see our comments on this mouthful in the last newsletter) crops up frequently – for the wrong reasons.

The latest news is that Nils Heckscher has resigned from the board with immediate effect. His resignation was tendered to Tourism MEC Lynne Brown and highlights his unhappiness with the organisation. This must have been a very, very tough decision for Heckscher to make, and points to deep-seated problems at CTRU. Is it an admission that CTRU is un-fixable?

CapeInfo interviewed him in October last year:

Heckscher sometimes reacts strongly to published criticisms. He has very clear-cut ideas of how things should be handled and has tackled CapeInfo in the past, accusing us of negativity which contributed to CTRU’s problems. (He doesn’t say we were wrong, but rather that we wrong to publish.)

“Criticism is important,” he says, “but it’s more effective to make changes from within structures, noting the criticism. As the chair of Fedhasa, I would not serve our members or the industry by merely standing on the fringe, shouting “foul” at every opportunity. Getting involved, getting “your hands dirty” is what eventually yields results. When you are not involved, those criticised just close up and carry on as usual anyway.”

This follows on the heels of the resignation of George Uriesi, CTRU’s chairman for the past year.

Is CTRU just a political animal that will always muddle along, using millions in taxpayers’ funding while giving a poor return on investment?