In the Cape Times on Tuesday Glenn Babb, a former Director General of Foreign Affairs, and a commissioner for our country at the Venice Biennale in 1993 and 1995, wrote a lengthy article about the City of Cape Town having paid millions of Rands to support two money-making organisations handing out accolades to those cities prepared to pay for them, and which most had not been heard of previously. The City had justified the expenditures, funded by means of ratepayers’ monies, on the basis of the tourism benefits these accolades would hold for Cape Town.
Bitingly entitled ‘Cape Town’s Devious Designs’, Babb focused on Table Mountain becoming one of the New7Wonders of Nature. He writes that the Swiss-based company New7Wonders of Nature Foundation, which drove the campaign, makes its money from the sms-revenue generated when the citizens of cities are encouraged to vote to get one’s landmark onto the top seven list. The company claimed that it had received 100 million votes, each of which had generated income for the company. The City of Cape Town had spent extensive monies on advertising to support the campaign to get Capetonians to vote.
He writes that similarly the company organising the previously unheard of World Design Capital accolade is the Canadian-based International Council of Scientific and Industrial Design, to which the City of Cape Town paid more than R6 million to apply, to be shortlisted, and to accept the accolade as Host City, with the false promise
made that it would showcase achievements in design and urban policy (there is no central exhibition of Cape Town’s design achievements); gain visibility as a centre for design and innovation; position the city as a leading centre of design; and the biggest lie of all ‘build global image as a must-see travel destination‘! Babb is funny in his sarcastic description of the close to 500 projects which have received official recognition as World Design Capital 2014 projects, stretching the definition of ‘design‘ in many instances! Our views on the poor organisation of the shocking World Design Capital 2014 Gala Dinner, and the poorly attended March Media briefing, have been documented on this Blog.
Cape Town Tourism, at the time that it was headed up by Mariette du Toit-Helmbold, pushed for both accolades, and assisted in making the false promises supposedly for the gain of tourism. Its former PR and Communications Manager Skye Grove was part of the City delegation which travelled to Taipei, where Cape Town was awarded the World Design Capital 2014 accolade.
To date no tourism benefit has been evident from the City of Cape Town spending R 100 million or more on Table Mountain becoming a New7Wonders of Nature, and on Cape Town hosting World Design Capital 2014. Babb estimates the costs on the basis of Cape Town Design NPC keeping a staff of 18 employed for the year and in running an advertising campaign in print and on MyCiTy Bus bus stops. In fact, Priscilla Urquhart, Media and PR Manager of Cape Town Design NPC, the company co-ordinating Cape Town’s role as World Design Capital, told an international journalist recently that the year-long design event was not designed to attract tourists! Surprisingly she still holds her job!
POSTSCRIPT 3/4: Both the Table Mountain Aerial Cableway Company and Cape Town Design NPC have reacted to Babb’s article. Sabine Lehmann, CEO of the Cableway company and conveniently Chairman of Cape Town Tourism then and now, writes that the benefit for the Cableway have been tremendous, both in terms of record numbers of visitors (fewer South-Easter days also assisting in the visitor numbers) as well as in terms of media coverage. Accusatory as she likes to be, Cape Town Design NPC’s Priscilla Urquhart blames Babb for never having attended any World Design Capital 2014 functions (there have only been Pitching sessions, held twice a month, which are open to the public), and corrects him on the number of full-time staff being 12, and the budget for the running of the company being R40 million (which excludes the marketing costs).
Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com Twitter: @WhaleCottage
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