WhaleTales Blog

Yesterday I attended the launch of Yumcious Café in the DeVille Centre in Durbanville, the second restaurant of Chef Jenny Morris, her first one being the very successful Yumcious Café in the Cape Quarter.  (more…)

To date very few companies have jumped on the Western Cape Water disaster bandwagon for their marketing campaign. Insurance company Sanlam is an unusual link to the disaster, in its marketing use, other than its possibly sizable advertising budget! Other than the lack of brand connection credibility, the campaign is clever and promotes South African music. (more…)

Despite the weaker Rand, international tourist arrivals have not increased dramatically as one would have expected. Tourism Minister Derek Hanekom has encouraged locals, (more…)

Every year the tourism authorities in Cape Town claim that the ‘holiday season‘ has been the busiest ever, without having any concrete figures as to the number of local and international tourists visiting our city. The media and (more…)

Today the peak of the Festive Season comes to an end, as visitors from Johannesburg and other parts of the county and the world return home, to start work on Monday. (more…)

Despite a dreadful tourism performance in the past year, largely due to the Department of Home Affairs Visa Regulations introduced more than a year ago (but recently reversed), Cape (more…)

Cape Town Tourism has launched three new neighborhood videos ‘hosted’ by Cape Town personalities, as tools to market our beautiful city!

The three videos, collectively referred to as ‘Love Cape Town Neighbourhood Series’, focus on the CBD, Woodstock, and Kalk Bay, and are designed to give visitors to Cape (more…)

In my book CNN is a credible news agency, but this image has been severely dented by an article entitled ‘7 stunning Cape Town vineyards with food as good as the wine’, written last week by one Griffin Shea. Not one of the seven wine estates featured are in Cape Town!

The article introduction is short and sweet: ‘It’s no secret that in Cape Town, good wine abounds. But wine farms also host some of South Africa’s best restaurants, which pride themselves on serving up meals from ingredients often grown just steps away from the tables. These restaurants have won enough awards to fill walls, but like so many of South Africa’s best places to eat, they’re generally relaxed, unpretentious affairs where the prices won’t break the bank. Many of the menus are deceptively simple, heavy on local ingredients and farm fare, but prepared with passion and care’.

It does not state on which basis the wine estates were selected, but obviously they had to have a ‘great‘ restaurant, (more…)

Whilst it is good news that the Western Cape province and the City of Cape Town have workshopped the perennial Winter Seasonality problem in Cape Town and the Western Cape with industry players, one wonders if once again it is too little too late, discussing Seasonality at the tail end of Winter! The outcome of the workshop has been a promise that all stakeholders ‘have committed to working together to address the negative impact that Seasonality has on the industry’, a Cape Town Tourism media release states!

Cape Town Mayor Patricia de Lille said at the workshop:  ‘We live in a global village and if we want to be a world-class city then we need to stop being complacent and only enjoying the benefits of tourism in our summer months. If we can re-position Cape Town as an all-year destination by leveraging Events and Business tourism, our incoming flight numbers, income generated from the tourism industry and jobs in tourism will improve significantly’.

At the workshop it was agreed that a ‘collective strategy and framework involving all parties in the tourism field‘ is (more…)

The Cape Town Cup, which took place on 24 and 26 July last weekend, is the biggest Football Flop the City of Cape Town has thrown ratepayers’ money at, estimated to be R 30 million!

I am not a supporter of the ANC politics in the City of Cape Town Council meetings nor those at provincial level, but the reports yesterday, quoting both Tony Ehrenreich and Marius Fransman, made me sit up and take note.

Driving past the Cape Town Stadium last Friday at 18h00, the starting time of the first match, I was surprised at how easy it was to get to the V&A Waterfront, my usual route leading past the Stadium. Other than the Stadium (more…)