Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines

*   A 13-series ‘5 Sterre met Reuben‘ launched on kykNET today, with Chef Reuben Riffel cooking a three course meal, paired to a wine, and chatting to a product sponsor.  The program will air on Tuesdays at 17h30.

*   The last three MasterChef SA blogposts we wrote received record viewership in September, the blog achieving a record of almost 40000 unique pageviews), according to Google Analytics. The most read blogposts were the prediction of a controversial MasterChef SA end, Ozzy Osman’s controversial elimination, and Kamini Pather’s controversial win.  The competition we ran to predict the MasterChef SA winner also featured on the top blogpost list, as did our review of La Parada on Bree, the Winter Restaurant specials, the recent restaurant openings and closures, the ‘Mickey Mouse’ training done by Disney before the 2010 World Cup (blogpost written more than three years ago!), and the review of the new KOI Bantry Bay Restaurant.

*   Reuben Riffel’s Reuben’s Abalone House opened in Paternoster today. (via media release from Manley Communications)

*   Trade mark issues make it very difficult to trade in China, as the country allows trade marks to be registered, even if they already exist and are registered elsewhere in the world, as this wine case study shows.

*   Tourists tend to plan their next trip directly after returning from their holiday.

*   Google is using an algorithm called ‘Hummingbird‘ to make searches more relevant, in that it takes more words in a query into account, instead of only focusing on key words.

*   Michael Jordaan, former CEO of First National Bank, is the new Chairman of Mxit, South Africa’s ‘most engaging’ social network, with 7,4 million active users.

*   Durbanville Hills is celebrating Halloween on 31 October with a difference, with a 5 km and 10 km ‘Chase the Sunset Trail Run‘, preferably in Halloween outfits!  The trail route runs through the vineyards. (via media release from De Kock Communications)

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