Category Archives: conferences

WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 7/8/9 February

WhaleTalesTourism, Food, and Wine news headlines

*   President Jacob Zuma has announced that the General Election will take place on 7 May. (via Twitter)

*   Wifi availability and its smooth operation is a ‘deal breaker’ for business as well as leisure travellers, in choosing their accommodation, being more important than any other criterion.  In an analysis of 53 million reviews written in English, 2 million mentioned wifi/wi-fi and internet, and found a correlation between non-availability and poor connectivity with lower scores for the establishment out of a total of 5.  However, a perfect wifi service is not rewarded with a 5/5 score, as it is taken for granted that it should be available and work perfectly.

*   A Safari in Africa ranks third on the 10Best Readers Choice Best Bucket List.   Top of the Bucket List is the Galapagos Islands in Ecuador, followed by Alaska.  The South Pacific Islands, Italy, Greece, Ireland, New Zealand, the Pyramids, and the Swiss Alps are also on the top 10 Bucket List.

*   A restaurant collection called bunnychow has opened in London, Bath, and Chester in the Continue reading →

WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 17 September

WhaleTalesTourism, Food, and Wine news headlines

*   The days of printed travel guides are numbered, delegates at the e-Tourism Africa Summit were told last week.  The Triposo app was introduced to delegates, which allows the traveller to aggregate real time on line tourism information assimilated from different sources.

*   South African hotels offer the best customer service, and it is on a par with hotels in other countries.  Unsurprisingly Government departments and utilities are at the bottom of the list.

*   Boschendal’s Grand Cuvee Brut 2009 has won the Best Vintage Brut at the 2013 Continue reading →

Cape Town city centre to change dramatically, will benefit tourism!

Convention Centre 3A number of multi-million Rand projects are underway to change the face of Cape Town in the next few years, reports The Times.   They will also have a positive effect on tourism.

One of the biggest tourism income generators is the expansion of the Cape Town International Convention Centre, which is set to double in size, currently earning the City R400 million per annum.  Expanding the Convention Centre will allow Cape Town to bid for the Heart Congress, for example, the world’s largest conference, as well as to host the annual Tourism Indaba, which would meet the Convention Centre’s goal of Continue reading →

Cape Town a hit for medical conferences, new bids inject R48 million!

An increasing number of medical conferences are being held in Cape Town, in the Cape Town International Convention Centre in particular.  The City has just won two major bids for medical conferences in the next three years, expected to generate R48 million in revenue for the city, and 16500 ‘delegate days’, reports Cape Business News.

The ’16th International Congress of Infectious Diseases’ will take place in 2014, and the Convention Centre beat Melbourne for the honour of hosting the conference.  Cape Town beat Vancouver in its bid to host the ‘International Urogynecological Association 2016’ conference.   The conferences will follow on the 10000 delegate ‘International Conference on AIDS and STI in Africa’, to be held in Cape Town in December.  The ‘Investing in Africa Mining Indaba’, hosting 7500 delegates last week, had a tremendous revenue benefit for Cape Town.

The planned doubling in the size of the Cape Town International Convention Centre is expected to lead to 40 or more international conferences being hosted in the city from 2016, a doubling in the current conference number, making Cape Town ‘one of the world’s top long-haul conference destinations’, said Rashid Toefy, the CEO of the Cape Town International Convention Centre.  This is excellent news for Cape Town’s tourist industry, as there is no doubt that large international conferences are good for the accommodation, restaurant, taxi, and airline business!

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