Cape Town has a very specific tourism pain point: Accommodation check-out happens mid-morning, while international flights depart late in the afternoon or evening. The gap in between is long enough to matter and awkward enough to ruin a day.

This week, local startup Bag Drop, which specialises in picking up, storing and delivering luggage for travellers in Cape Town, officially launched its first set of smart luggage lockers at the V&A Waterfront.

When travellers are forced to carry luggage for hours, their behaviour changes. They sit in one place. They avoid crowds. They cut activities short. The last day of a trip quietly becomes low-spend time.

Bag Drop’s founder spotted this as a design flaw in the travel experience. By giving tourists a secure place to drop their bags in one of Africa's busiest tourist precincts, the company turns dead hours back into active ones.

For nearby restaurants, shops and attractions, that matters. For travellers, it’s the difference between killing time and enjoying it.

Cape Town saw record tourist numbers in 2025. And Bag Drop has been operating there for several years through a collection, storage and delivery model. The company has already:

The startup is also part of the Tourism Grassroots Innovation Programme, which backs practical solutions to real tourism bottlenecks rather than speculative tech.

This locker installation at the V&A is not a first experiment. It’s the next step.

Early versions of Bag Drop relied heavily on a high-touch logistics model. Drivers collected bags from Airbnbs, transported them to storage, and delivered them again later. It worked, but it scaled slowly and carried real operational costs.

Smart lockers change that equation.

By placing hardware in a high-traffic, trusted location, Bag Drop removes the need for human coordination at every step. Users generate their own access codes, drop their bags, and get on with their day. Fixed infrastructure replaces variable labour.

That shift turns a service business into something closer to a platform.

The location is a moat: International luggage players like Radical Storage and Stasher already operate in major cities by partnering with small shops and cafes.

By securing space at the V&A Waterfront (rather than relying on ad-hoc partner locations), Bag Drop is building infrastructure in SA’s most visited city.

Don’t be too surprised if you see more of their smart lockers popping up in key tourist spots in the area.