Category Archives: conferences

WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 18 August

WhaleTalesTourism, Food, and Wine news headlines

*  At the SAACI Congress Wesgro has been named as South Africa’s best Convention Bureau, and the Cape Town International Convention Centre the country’s best Convention venue. (via Twitter)

*   Hanneli Slabber, SA Tourism Country Manager for India, has received the ‘Best Professional in Marketing‘ award at the Safari India National Tourism Awards. Since her appointment in India, there has been a marked growth in tourists from India to South Africa.

*   Minister of Tourism Derek Hanekom has praised the role of Business Tourism as well as of Events, in addressing the SAACI (South African Association for the Conference Industry) Congress today.  He said that this sector of Tourism, which has an above average spend when visiting Continue reading →

WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 9/10 August

WhaleTalesTourism, Food, and Wine news headlines

*   Minister of Tourism Derek Hanekom said that he does not have the power to change the new Immigration Regulations which come into effect on 1 October, when he addressed the Southern African Tourism Services Association (SATSA) this weekend.  He admitted that ‘new regulations could have unintended, negative consequences for the tourism industry‘!  However, the new regulations are the responsibility of the Department of Home Affairs, he said.  Some concessions have been made by the Department, including that the unabridged birth certificates of child travelers no longer have to be translated into English, and that more visa application centres (in India and China in particular) will be created.  Fortunately tourists from Europe, the UK, and USA do not require visas to travel to our country, and are therefore not affected.  Tourism consultancy Grant Thornton is to conduct a study to measure the impact on Tourism of the new regulations.

*   Cape Town has been rated as 8th friendly international city, while Johannesburg has been ranked as the most unfriendly city in the world by Conde Nast Traveler!  Auckland and Melbourne were jointly voted as the most friendly cities in Continue reading →

Cape Town International Convention Centre expansion will be good for Tourism!

Cape Town International Convention Centre sod turningThe sod has been turned for the construction for the expansion to the Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC), which is certain to boost the Tourism industry in Cape Town specifically, and the Western Cape economy generally.  Green design elements have been planned, to make the expansion section environmentally sustainable.

Western Cape Minister of Tourism Alan Winde said about the expansion: ‘The CTICC is a major economic catalyst and the planned expansion of the venue will significantly increase its capacity for meetings and exhibitions. This will boost business travel to the province and create more employment opportunities in the tourism sector. In the previous financial year, it is estimated that the CTICC created 7 500 jobs. This is an excellent example of infrastructure-led growth paving the way for increased employment for our residents’.  The exhibition space will double by 10000 m², which means that Cape Town can bid for future Indabas, Africa’s largest tourism exhibition.

The Western Cape attracted 28000 conference delegates worth R347 million in the past year.  In the current financial year  this is Continue reading →

New Immigration regulations: Cape Tourism authorities outraged!

South African travel visaThe Cape Town and Western Cape tourism authorities are outraged by the arbitrary changes which have been made in the newly promulgated Immigration Regulations 2014, especially those pertaining to child tourists, and the effect that this is having already on tourism to our city and province.  The implementation of the Regulations has been delayed from 1 July to 1 October, as a result of the uproar it has generated.

The new Immigration regulations require parents to travel with the unabridged birth certificate of each child, the only country in the world to require this documentation for travel to another country.  The process of acquiring such  a document is a lengthy one, one mother writing on Facebook that she had just collected hers from the Malmesbury offices of the Department of Home Affairs after a 13 month waiting period.  This branch is the most efficient at such applications, she had been advised.  The regulations also require the second parent to agree to the foreign travel by the child if that parent is not part of the travel party.

In addition, the new regulations require that visas be applied for outside the country, which would make Continue reading →