Operation Copulation

MARKETING MIX, SEPTEMBER 2000

THERE ARE MANY ways to spice up a flagging marriage but I wouldn’t have thought that visiting Brackenfell was one of them. Brackenfell, in case you’ve never had the pleasure of driving past it at high speed while murmuring a spell to ward off evil spirits, is a dismal suburb in the north of Cape Town. Until recently, the best thing you could say about Brackenfell is that it’s neither Salt River nor Woodstock. Actually, that is still the best thing you can say about it. That is no longer, however, the most interesting thing you can say about Brackenfell, because recently Brackenfell was announced as being the lucky beneficiary of Cape Town’s newest and boldest marketing initiative.

When it comes to marketing, you have to take your hat off to Cape Town, and not merely to shoo it away. Cape Town is more ready and willing to sell itself than any large town you’ve ever met. Cape Town is the Hansie Cronjé of seaside settlements.

It doesn’t miss a trick: the last time I arrived at Cape Town airport I was handed a book of coupons, redeemable against the price of my next visit.

Above all, Cape Town’s strategy is broad. In recent times, it has sold itself internationally as the only place to be if you are (a) a homosexual sex tourist, (b) interested in sleeping with under-aged girls, (c) an admirer of Earl Spencer, (d) a money launderer or (e) a real-estate speculator. Or, indeed, any combination of the above. But the Brackenfell venture is a stroke of uncommon genius.

Brackenfell is the proposed site of a new multi-million-rand lodge, to be built in anticipation of a surge in swingers’ tours. It will offer adult entertainment, on-call sex therapists and communal spa-baths. What is a swingers’ tour, you ask, trembling? According to a recent report, one Robin Pike is advertising Cape Town as the ideal destination for international wife-swapping safaris. Allegedly, up to 100 British and German couples each month are queuing to come south and make whoopee with someone else’s spouse. Projected revenue is more than R60 million a year, which explains why the scheme has been given the thumbs-up from Satour and the Ministry of Tourism.

I must confess the idea startles me. The notion that our husbands and wives are a marketable natural resource will take some getting used to. The realisation that the Big 5 now includes Mrs Katz from down the hall, frankly, leaves me dizzy. The obvious obstacle to the scheme is that old South African bugaboo – racial intolerance. Having canvassed the fellows down at the Chalk ’n Cue, I can sadly report that many a lad who would do his patriotic duty in the cause of tourism with Mr and Mrs Hamburg or the Von Stuttgarts would draw the line at his own better half in the clutches of an Englishman.

Still, there appear to be enough takers for the proposition to be viable: Johannesburg apparently has 6000 registered swingers, Cape Town a stately 2000 and Durban, ever keen to get in on the action, boasts a game 1000. Personally, I suspect that Johannesburg has a good deal more than 6000 but most of them don’t realise they’re swinging. They just think they work for an advertising agency.

There are obvious questions: How does one go about registering as a swinger? Must you pay a subscription fee? Is there a board of swinging directors? What constitutes a quorum at a swingers’ AGM? And who provides the refreshments afterwards? Above all, what are the benefits of being a registered swinger? Discounts on bulk purchases of paper towels and red-tinted light-bulbs upon presentation of a valid membership card? Special family rates at participating love shacks and motels? Frequent-flyer miles? There is so much to think about.

Even more boggling to the mind is the question of what scheme Cape Town will dream up to top this one. Brazil has already cornered the market in organ transplant tourism, and Indonesia has surely had the last word in hostage chic. In the marketing stakes, cities are like sharks. When they stop moving, they die. Just ask Tripoli, or Vladivostok – all the open marriages in the world won’t save them now.