CASE STUDY

V&A Waterfront Economic Contribution Study

Measuring the Economic Heartbeat of Cape Town’s Most Iconic Precinct

Client: V&A Waterfront Holdings (Pty) Ltd | Sector: Urban Economic Development | Cape Town, South Africa

R45.9bn

Total economic contribution

83,000

Total jobs supported

R18.6bn

Household income

433

SMEs supported

1.52%

Share of WC economy

The Challenge

The V&A Waterfront is a 123-hectare mixed-use precinct that has evolved from a conventional harbour into one of Africa’s most dynamic urban environments, encompassing retail, hospitality, residential, commercial, cultural and working harbour activities across Cape Town’s Atlantic seaboard.

V&A Waterfront Holdings required a comprehensive and independent economic analysis to accurately measure the precinct’s overall contribution, extending beyond basic revenue statistics. This assessment needed to encompass the full range of impacts on GDP, employment, household income and enterprise development, presented in a manner that supported strategic decision-making and suitable for public disclosure and media engagement.

StratEcon's Approach

StratEcon has been the V&A Waterfront’s trusted economic analysis partner since 2012, producing bi-annual reports over more than a decade. The 2024 report, the sixth in the series, is the most comprehensive to date, combining four sets of analyses:

Macroeconomic modelling – real GDP contribution adjusted for inflation across a 22-year period
Employment analysis – 30,000 direct and 83,000 total jobs, tracing supply-chain effects nationally
Household income modelling – wage flows from R2.4bn in 2002 to R18.6bn in 2024
Enterprise development – profiling 433 SMEs by turnover, tenure, gender ownership and youth employment

Key Findings

The 2024 report confirmed full pandemic recovery and more:

GDP contribution rose 11.5% above 2020 levels in real terms, reaching R45.9 billion in total economic contribution
15,000 pandemic-era jobs were fully recovered, with a further 12,000 new jobs created nationally by 2024
The precinct’s share of the Western Cape economy reached 1.52%, growing nearly 1.5× faster than the provincial average since 2005
60% of Watershed SMEs have female ownership; women make up the majority of the broader workforce
Small business turnover reached R438m, nine times the R48m of 2010, with SMEs achieving real growth of 8.5% on average between 2020 and 2024.

The Outcome

The report was published as a publicly available document and used by the V&A Waterfront across investor communications, media releases and government engagements. It received widespread South African business media coverage and has directly informed strategic planning for the proposed Granger Bay development, which StratEcon’s analysis projects will create 15,000 on-site jobs and 49,400 across the wider economy.

This is the sixth successive report StratEcon has produced for the V&A Waterfront since 2012, a long-term relationship built on analytical rigour, consistent methodology and the ability to translate complex economic modelling into insight that is genuinely useful for decision-making and public communication.

Services Delivered

StratEcon performs the assignments successfully, to our satisfaction and within the required time and programme parameters.

Donald Kau, Head: PR & Communications

See the Quality of Our Work for Yourself

Download the report of the V&A Waterfront’s economic contribution to the Western Cape economy, a real example of the analysis StratEcon delivers.