The Sweet Service Award goes to the Soccer World Cup 2014, which has been entertaining, full of surprises in winning and losing teams, lots of goals scored, new records set (the Germany – Brazil match being the most remembered in future, one would expect), and dominating Social Media for the past four weeks by setting new Twitter records. The crowning highlight will be the Final between Germany and Argentina on Sunday evening. Continue reading →
Category Archives: world cup 2014
WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 20 June
Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines
* The International Air Transport Association (IATA) is encouraging its members to use IT to improve the customer experience, saying that airlines ‘fly people and cargo, not planes‘. Consistency of customer experience is not yet satisfactory for airlines, with little differentiation. Customers would like to use IT to check in online, tag luggage themselves, board themselves, and collect bags themselves, an IATA survey found last year. IATA’s goal is that 80% of passengers have a ‘self-service suite based on industry standards‘ available to them by 2020.
* PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) is not known as a Tourism consultancy, so its prediction about our country’s tourism future is a surprise. Its report presents growth of 4% in international tourists 2013, far lower than the 10% growth in 2012. Growth is said to be solid and good, but ‘not fantastic growth‘. Almost three quarters of international visitors to our country are from Africa, the report confirms. Nigeria would become the leading source market for our country, the PwC study predicts. The Guest House category is the fastest growing in respect of room availability. South Africa’s strength is that it attracts leisure as well as business travelers.
* France must be feeling the tourism pinch, having announced plans to become more welcoming to tourists, English speaking ones in particular. The country hopes to increase tourist numbers to 100 million, Continue reading →
Soccer World Cup 2014: where to find the screens, snacks, and Schnapps!
The Soccer World Cup 2014 has kicked off, and one would have thought that Cape Town restaurants and pubs would have shown more ‘gees’. We have only seen one restaurant on Kloof Street ‘advertising’ its soccer allegiance, with three flags on the outside of Cocoa Oola In general the soccer event appears to be a damp squib for locals. A number of restaurants are offering free viewing, some with special menu items that reflect the countries playing on the day.
Check the closing times of the restaurants and pubs before choosing them, as their licence will influence how late they are allowed to stay open. It is surprising how hard it is to find Soccer World Cup 2014 information on the websites of those restaurants and bars attracting soccer fans. We will update this list as we find new information about offers linked to the Soccer World Cup 2014:
* Mondiall – this restaurant is commendable in being one of the most creative and focused on the Soccer World Cup 2014. Each day it chooses a lead game, offering a tapas dish and a main course from the countries, with a complimentary drink, of each of the two teams playing each other on the day, at a cost of R180. For today, for example, with Germany playing Portugal, the German tapas dish offered is potato soup with crispy pork and chives, while the main course is Bratwurst, and the complimentary drink a CBC Weiss. The Portuguese
tapas is peri peri chicken wings, the main course a prego roll, and the complimentary drink sangria. The country dishes for the chosen matches over the next ten days are as follows:
17 June: Brazil versus Mexico
18 June: Spain versus Chile Continue reading →
WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 13 June
Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines
* Food and ‘foodball‘ have a close relationship, and just like VIPs, the international soccer teams have specific food requirements for their players: the Australian team requires a coffee machine in each player’s room; the Ecuadorean players require a freshly filled basket of bananas imported from Ecuador every day; and the USA team will have fruit and honeycake in each player’s room every day, and they will have their meals prepared by a two star Michelin chef. Germany has a ‘Nutella-Fluch‘, a curse that seemed to effect each soccer player’s career used in the chocolate spread’s advertising, the players’ careers plummeting after featuring in the advertisement. Needless to say the advertising campaign has been canned!
* Western Cape Tourism Minister Alan Winde has ordered his Red Tape unit to evaluate whether the new Department of Home Affairs’ Immigration regulations are constitutional, and to meet with the national Department of Tourism as well as with Home Affairs to ‘find a way forward that will mitigate their negative impact’! The Minister said: ‘In the past week, my office has received numerous complaints from industry stakeholders whose businesses are already suffering losses’. The new legislation was not published for public feedback before proclamation. South Africa is the only country in the world requiring an unabridged birth certificate to accompany all travelling children!
* Cederberg Five Generations Cabernet Sauvignon 2011 is the only South African Cabernet Sauvignon out of 200 from nine countries evaluated by The Drinks Business Global Cabernet Sauvignon Masters Continue reading →