Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines

*  The Airports Company of South Africa (ACSA) is planning to extend the runway at Cape Town International, to allow larger aircraft and more planes to land.

*   About one fifth of accommodation bookings in the USA will be last minute, same day ones next year, made via smartphone or tablet.

*   While European traveller numbers are showing a small 2% growth, the fact that they are taking more shorter and shorter distance holidays rather than long haul ones is worrying for tourism to South Africa.

*   hotel.info has beaten TripAdvisor, British Airways, Expedia and booking.com in being named most popular travel and leisure website of the year.

*   Cybercellar has sold a 24% share of its business to Silvertree Capital, the internet wine ordering and delivery company representing 3800 wines.

*   To counter an anticipated decline in tourists to Durban, the local municipality is embarking on an aggressive R10 million marketing plan to attract more tourism business to the city, a major threat to Cape Town, for which little to no marketing is happening.  Events are one of Durban’s key tourism revenue sources.

*   Simonsig’s MCCs can now be paired with cakes, the idea of its winemaker Hannes Meyer.  He has paired the Simonsig Kaapse Vonkel 2010 with carrot cake with a cream cheese frosting;  Kaapse Vonkel Brut Rosé  is paired with a blueberry and lemon Madeleine; while the Cuvée Royale 2010 is paired with lemon poppy seed cake crowned with lemon curd. R50 per person. (received via media release from GC Communications)

*   Four Mantis hotel portfolio properties were honoured at the World Travel Awards:

• World’s Leading Adventure Tour Operator: Mantis eXtreme
• World’s Leading Boutique Cruise: Zambezi Queen
• World’s Leading Extreme Adventure: Bear Grylls Survival Academy
• World’s Leading Ice Hotel: ICEHOTEL

(received via media release from Nicky Arthur PR)

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