Category Archives: Nelson Mandela

WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 4 February

WhaleTalesTourism, Food, and Wine news headlines

*   Chef Heston Blumenthal has temporarily closed his Michelin 2 star Dinner restaurant in London due to an outbreak of the norovirus, which affected 24 patrons and 21 staff.  It follows the closure of his The Fat Duck restaurant five years ago for the same reason!

*   Despite making a close to R1 billion loss in the latest financial year, SAA has bid to take a share in Senegal Airlines, which is facing bankruptcy!

*   Facebook is celebrating its 10th anniversary today, and is a lucrative communication platform for tourism.  The official Australia page has attracted 5,5 million ‘Likers’, while Love Great Britain has 2 million ‘Likers’.

*   Wines of South Africa (WOSA) is celebrating the 2oth anniversary of our country’s democracy by means of a series of videos showcasing how the political transformation has touched people in the wine industry. A new video will be released on the WOSA website weekly, for a six week period.  ‘From fifth-generation labourer to co-owner of a major farming venture, from refugee to nurseryman, from scholarship student to renowned winemaker and role model, from drug-addled  gangster to farrier, each of the intimate stories in WOSA’s The Democracy Series movingly charts a journey of progress‘, states the media release.  Each video ends with a quotation by the late Nelson Mandela. (received via media release from De Kock Communications)

*   Bubbly Isabella Niehaus is celebrating the two year anniversary of the Palms Market at the PalmsDecor & Lifestyle Centre with a ‘Spectacular Cook-Out with Spekko Rice‘ on Saturday 15 February.   Six top foodies will have their cooking challenge (the dishes have to include Hermanuspietersfontein wine and 1 Continue reading →

WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 25/26 January

WhaleTalesTourism, Food, and Wine news headlines

*   Queen Elizabeth will honour the late Nelson Mandela with an invitation-only memorial service at Westminster Abbey on 11 February, the day on which Madiba was released from the then Victor Verster prison in 1990.  It will be the first service for a non-British citizen, reports The New Age.

*  David Williams from The Observer has selected three South African wines as his ‘wines of the week‘:   Reyneke Organic Syrah 2011, Ken Forrester Workhorse Chenin Blanc 2012, and De Grendel Sauvignon Blanc 2013.

*   A trade and tourism delegation from the Miami-Dade county and Enterprise Florida Inc will visit Cape Town, as well as Johannesburg and Continue reading →

Robben Island problems unlikely to be fixed in a hurry, bad for tourism!

Robben Island Museum logoSouthern African Tourism Update published a letter about the poor state of Robben Island and the tour experience for visitors to our city from Cape Town tour operator Francoise Armour of Tours du Cap late last year. More than 30 comments were received in response to the letter, most echoing her sentiments.  It has taken a month for Sibongiseni Mkhize, the CEO of Robben Island Museum (RIM), to respond.

His reply below reflects some willingness to hear and accept the negative feedback, but also finding excuses as to why the problems exist, by highlighting what has been improved (no more funds mismanagement or staff strikes) and blaming most of the problems on the ferries used to get one to the island, rather than focus on the island and the former prison experience.  He acknowledges that his operation may have been poor at communicating with the tourism industry to date!  He is particularly defensive about the state of the island, saying that it has improved considerably since Robben Island Museum took over its maintenance from the Department of Public Works. Hilarious is his reference to the ferry breakdowns not being due to mechanical reasons only, but also due to ‘sabotage’, without explaining this outrageous allegation!

Reading his reply does not give the tourism industry the confidence that anything will change on Robben Island in a great hurry.  Robben Island is a top tourism icon (or should be), but increasingly tour operators cut out the island from their tour itineraries due to its poor tourism impression.

‘I would like to sincerely apologise for the delay in responding to the letter from the tour operator who had a bad experience while on a visit to Robben Island. Her concerns, observations and comments are being taken seriously by the management of the museum. It is through comments like these that the museum will be able to improve its customer service. I have also taken Continue reading →

The Madiba effect: boost to Tourism?

Nelson Mandela Gateway to Robben IslandIrresponsible newspaper journalists like Bernard Sathekge of The New Age give journalism a bad name, by creating headlines which mislead their readers, especially those who just scan the headlines and do not read the content.

Writing one month after the passing of Nelson Mandela, Sathekge creates a headline ‘Madiba magic boosts tourism’ for his story, but quotes SA Tourism arrival figures for the period January – September 2013 throughout his article, clearly misleading the readers of the newspaper.  He follows this with a secondary headline, which is even more misleading and downright dishonest: ‘Late statesman’s stature contributes to raising number of visitors from around the world‘.  He underlines his dramatic headlines with his view that ‘Nelson Mandela continues to do the country a power of good as his death has spurred interest worldwide as well as locally in Mandela heritage sites‘, quoting visits to the Mandela Museum in Qunu, very much off the beaten tourism track, to have ‘spiked‘.  This is the sum total of his information foundation of the article, filling the rest with unrelated 2013 tourism trend information!

He does not mention the Robben Island museum in Cape Town, which does not support his findings, it having seen a 5% decline in visitor numbers in December 2013, according to information provided by the City of Cape Town.  In part the decline was due to Continue reading →