Cape Town Tourism is hosting three bloggers over a three week period, as a repeat of the 2012 Travel Blogger visit, attempting to reach international and domestic travelers and to encourage them to visit Cape Town.  This campaign failed to achieve its goal in 2012, and the new campaign could follow the same route!

We were very critical of the visit by the four bloggers last year, after the New York Times questioned the ethics of travel blogging, and focused its article on Keith Jenkins, the Velvet Escape blogger who led the Blogger team coming to Cape Town last year.  The Bloggers were seen to have blogged little before, during, and after their visit to Cape Town, and to have little credibility in not declaring that their visits were sponsored by Cape Town Tourism and its members, and that there was little that they paid for themselves.  This led to ‘advertorials’ written, mainly about their accommodation in Camps Bay.  Most of what was posted by the bloggers was ‘photoblogs’, a blogpost consisting of a photograph only!

Cape Town Tourism issued a very brief media release about the pending blogger visits, and claimed incorrectly that the ‘inaugural #lovecapetown blogger hosting programme contributed to Cape Town Tourism winning a Travel + Leisure SMITTY Awards (Social Media in Travel + Tourism Awards) in the category Best Overall Use of Social Media, CVB, Global‘.  The awards which were won by Cape Town Tourism (a Gold Loerie added on Saturday evening) were for the Facebook campaign, inviting one to take one’s Facebook profile on holiday, and had nothing to do with the hashtag nor the visit by the bloggers.  We have written how the Cannes Gold Award which Ogilvy Cape Town won for the Facebook campaign was based on misleading claims made by the advertising agency of the ‘success’ of the campaign!

Cape Town Tourism has created a #lovecapetown page on its website, being a summation of all Facebook posts and Tweets using the hashtag. One is invited to follow the bloggers via the hashtag.  Surprising is that Cape Town Tourism has created so little excitement for the arrival of the bloggers, but our meeting with its CEO Enver Duminy highlighted how short staffed his organisation is.  The media release states that the three travel bloggers will ‘pair up with local companion bloggers from Cape Town and other parts of South Africa‘, but the local bloggers were not mentioned.  This detail was on the Cape Town Tourism website: ‘Each international blogger will be paired with her South African genre counterpart and these include Merushka Govender (Travel); Angie Batis (Design) and (now MasterChef SA Season 2 winner) Kamini Pather (Food)’.

The three bloggers are from countries which Cape Town Tourism writes are ‘key tourism source markets for Cape Town’, but the very important German market is visible by its absence!

• Rachel Lucas from The Travel Bite is from America, and writes about ‘Food, Travel, Fun’.  She blogs infrequently, only once this month to date.  She was in the Cape as a guest of SA Tourism a month ago, and also has been to our region in 2011, in March/April 2012, and in April 2013.  Shocking is the errors in her blogposts: visiting ‘Francshock’; referring to Delaire Graff as an accommodation option in Hermanus and its Botmaskop as a Hermanus wine, and thereafter as a Franschhoek wine!   She clearly was overwhelmed by her visit to Delaire Graff, mentioning it in a number of her (previous) Cape-based blogposts! She has 60176 Followers on Twitter.  Twitter @TravelBlggr.  Blog: http://thetravelbite.com

• Abigail King from Inside The Travel Lab is a British travel and lifestyle blogger who gave up her career as a doctor to travel the world.  She visited Cape Town as a young girl, before she became a blogger.  She blogs about eight times a month, using a light and flippant style.   She has written a first blogpost since her arrival, ‘Why South Africa is called the Rainbow Nation‘, and while disclosing that she is on a sponsored visit, she incorrectly refers to her host as ‘Cape Town Tourism Board‘!  She has 12706 Followers.  Twitter @insidetravellab.  Blog  www.insidethetravellab.com

• Carol T. More is one of four contributors to the Follow the Colours blog, which focuses on creativity and design, with no sign of any travel blogging, and is based in Brazil, a blogpost written in Portuguese daily.  The blog opens onto an intense article on Tattoing!  Carol arrived in Cape Town yesterday and stays until 4 October. She wrote a short blogpost about her arrival, with a photograph of Camps Bay (but does not name the suburb), and the logos of Cape Town Tourism and of the World Design Capital 2014.  She has 8236 Followers and is Tweeting in Portuguese, which means that locals will not be able to understand what she is saying about her stay in Cape Town.  Twitter:  @follow_colours Blog: http://followthecolours.com.br

A TweetUp yesterday evening was driven by Cape Town Tourism, asking a number of questions, including ‘Where do you go to get your design-fix‘; ‘What local restaurant should our #lovecapetown bloggers not miss out on during their stay?’;  ‘Recommend the best #CapeTown street food’; ‘Where do you go to people-watch in and around #CapeTown?‘;  and ‘Nobody knows #CapeTown like the locals – what’s your favourite hangout that’s new in the #MotherCity?‘.  Interesting is how actively Skye Grove, former PR and Communications Manager of Cape Town Tourism, participated in the Tweet Up.

The three bloggers will experience the following in Cape Town, according to the Cape Town Tourism website, and it is clear to see that no new thinking has gone into the itinerary, as it largely resembles that of 2012.  It is ironic too that the Tweet Up last night has no benefit, as all activities have been pre-planned!:   ‘Cape Town is home to so many fantastic attractions and activities. The list is quite endless, but top of their action-packed itineraries are a visit to our gorgeous wonder of nature, Table Mountain;  luxury spa treatments with a view at the Twelve Apostles Hotel & Spa ; people watching at the Mother City’s sizzling coffee shops; a meet and greet with our friendly African Penguins at Boulder’s Beach;  a walking tour of our creative Fringe District and Woodstock; giving back to the Masiphumelele  community with an AWOL Cycle Tour; a thrilling ride on the Flying Dutchman Funicular at Cape Point; a surfing lesson at Muizenberg Beach; a shopping  trip and walkabout the harbour at the V&A Waterfront; high tea at the decadent Mount Nelson Hotel; a taste of the township life in Langa; an underground tour through the tunnels of Cape Town and so much more‘.

Enver Duminy, CEO of Cape Town Tourism, is quoted in the release, and clearly still is finding his feet in making media statements, sounding theoretical and distant from the campaign, having inherited it from his predecessor Mariette du Toit-Helmbold.   This is what Enver wrote: ‘This aspect of the #lovecapetown marketing campaign is perhaps our most organic exercise, predominantly because it is people-driven. We are the custodians of the idea and we invite the bloggers to come and experience Cape Town but beyond that the #lovecapetown community drives it forward. We feel confident that they represent Cape Town at its most authentic and dynamic and we are looking forward to seeing the conversations unfold‘.

The bloggers that visited Cape Town last year appeared to be of a far greater stature, with larger Twitter Follower numbers and being travel focused. The three current bloggers appear very lightweight in their role in marketing Cape Town to the outside world on behalf of our tourism industry in Cape Town!  We predict that once again the Blogger campaign will not uplift the poor tourism performance all businesses in Cape Town are experiencing currently, coming out of the worst winter ever!

Cape Town Tourism:  www.capetown.travel/lovecapetown   Twitter: @CapeTownTourism

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com  Twitter: WhaleCottage