Tag Archives: accommodation industry

Future of accommodation star-grading questioned

Andrew Moth, editor of Hotel & Restaurant, always writes an interesting editorial in his monthly magazine, which is widely read by the hospitality industry.  He is a true gentleman, and has become milder in his commentary over time, and now only occasionally rocks the boat.  In the March edition, however, he questions the future of the Tourism Grading Council of South Africa’s accommodation star-grading system, which is sure to cause controversy, but probably reflects what many accommodation establishments feel.

Moth writes that the United Kingdom government-run star-grading system may soon see the withdrawal of government funding (he does not explain why, but it may be part of that country’s austerity drive, to cut spending).  He also states that he has been critical of the South African star-grading system, in that “the system is far from perfect”.  He writes: “But the vast majority of South Africa’s hotel rooms do not need a star grading to attract guests. The big national and international groups have their images to protect and, although there will always be cases where the experience does not match the brand promise, group-branded hotels in South Africa usually offer a good deal to savvy travellers”.  He highlights the views of Steenberg Hotel GM Gabi Gramm, who quite rightly asks: “Who needs stars when you are at the top of your game?”

Moth’s biggest gripe appears to be that the annual grading fees, which are intended for the marketing of South Africa, almost all land in the civil service pot, paying for “salaries, operating costs and unnecessary and unwarranted expenditure”.   He writes that our accommodation industry does not need civil servants or their marketing consultants to market our country as a business and leisure travel destination.  This should be left to the tourism product and service operators. 

Quite rightly Moth writes that the law of demand and supply will “deal” with those accommodation operators who do not meet acceptable quality standards, and that this does not have to be regulated by the Tourism Grading Council of South Africa.

Last year we reported about the dramatic changes that the Tourism Grading Council of South Africa had planned for its grading system, spending a fortune on consultants advising them on the new system, only to face an outcry from the accommodation industry, many establishments threatening to withdraw their support or to not renew their grading.   The outcry clearly was large enough for the Tourism Grading Council to throw out most of the changes it had initially proposed, leaving the grading system largely as it had been before.

A number of Camps Bay guest houses, including Whale Cottage Camps Bay,  is considering not renewing their star-grading.

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

European weather puts a freeze on Cape accommodation industry

The Arctic freeze that has hit the United Kingdom and Europe in the last three days is placing a further damper on the already depressed accommodation industry in the Cape.   Passengers making their way to Cape Town for their summer holiday are struggling to get onto planes at Heathrow in particular but also in Frankfurt.  This could cost Cape Town R 10,5 million per day in lost revenue, estimates the City of Cape Town’s Mansoor Mohamed, Director for Economic, Social Development and Tourism, reports the Cape Argus.

As if the delayed or non-arriving guests is not a bad enough blow, this summer is seeing one of the poorest occupancy levels.  The Times reports that such Cape Town’s top 5-star hotels as the Mount Nelson Hotel, Cape Grace and Table Bay Hotel are seeing occupancy levels decreased by 10 – 20 %, according to Cape Town Routes Unlimited CEO Calvyn Gilfellan.   He attributes the reduced occupancy to the opening of twelve new hotels in the past one and a half years.  

Gilfellan is quoted as saying that big events are needed for the city, to fill hotel beds.   He also said that the positive effect of the World Cup was overshadowing the recent tragic event in a township.   He said that bookings were more last-minute, and that tourists were trading down, into camping sites and staying with relatives.    A price shake-up could be on the cards, Gilfellan added.

Bed & Breakfasts and Guest House have not been spared the poor booking scenario, which has been impacted upon by the strong Rand and the poor UK economy.   Cape Town has not been booked out for the festive season period.

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

Tourism Grading Council apologises to accommodation industry

The recent attempt by the Tourism Grading Council of South Africa to completely overhaul its grading assessment criteria, and then to withdraw most of the proposed changes due to the outcry from the accommodation industry, is the biggest PR gaffe of the body that has been tasked by South African Tourism to set accommodation quality standards.  The Tourism Grading Council’s charming Chief Quality Assurance Officer Thembi Kunene admitted that an error had been made in presenting the first draft to the industry.

We wrote recently about the final decisions the Tourism Grading Council made, relative to the draft proposal, in its new accommodation grading assessment criteria.   At a presentation to the Cape Town accommodation industry at the Cape Town International Convention Centre earlier this week, Ms Kunene was commendably honest in her feedback about the effect the draft proposals had, and that the potential loss of many accommodation establishments from the grading system led to a rethink, and a delay by about four months, in introducing the new assessment criteria.  

The Tourism Grading Council was criticised for only setting up the meeting in Cape Town in November, the city with the largest number of graded establishments in the country, when it had done presentations in Hermanus and Franschhoek, for example, in September already.   The Tourism Grading Council is clearly sensing a concern, and is doing a road show throughout the country during November, to reassure its clients.   The only problem was that the meeting was set for 8h00 – 12h00, the busiest time of day for accommodation establishments – the smaller they are, the more likely it is that the owners are hands-on in their establishments in making breakfast and checking out their guests, and therefore were unable to attend the meeting.  Ironically, an establishment owner said that the only reason why he was able to attend was because he had no guests in his guest house!

What is not understandable, despite the fact that Ogilvy PR handles the public relations for the Tourism Grading Council, is that no PR campaign has been launched to repair the damage caused to its image amongst its clients through the draft assessment criteria document, which was sent to all star-graded properties.  No current star-graded establishment has received any communication to explain that the bulk of the proposed controversial assessment criteria have been scrapped.  Assessors also seem to have been overwhelmed by the controversial process and the number of calls they had to field about the proposed changes, that they themselves have not been proactive in informing their clients about the dramatic turnaround in the new grading assessment criteria.

A sensitive issue is that the Tourism Grading Council has chosen a new formula for the calculation of its annual fees, by weighting the average room rate and number of rooms to come up with the new fee.  In an example provided for a 2-star guest house in Soweto, the fee increase was shown to be 10 %, whereas it was a far larger increase for a larger higher-starred guest house.  The fee increase in excess of the inflation rate attracted strong criticism amongst the attendees, when accommodation establishments have frozen their rates, some as far back as 2007 already.  The fact that a breakfast was provided was raised by Ms Kunene, as if the establishment owners should have been grateful for the mediocre Convention Centre breakfast, consisting of fruit, cereals, yoghurt, rolls and cold meats, and that it should justify the fee increase!   Ironically, Ms Kunene talked about her new iPad, and one wonders why such a R9000 purchase was necessary!   Each attendee also received a gift on departure, unusable to most and thus a wasted expenditure.   One also wonders why KPMG was contracted to handle the revision of the grading criteria assessment, and how much they were paid, for a proposal that has dented the image of the Tourism Grading Council, and with it that of SA Tourism!

We have written previously that technically very little has changed in the assessment criteria.  It was interesting to hear which of the proposed assessment criteria changes attracted the largest industry criticism:

*  airconditioning – an “air temperature control system” is now acceptable as an alternative to airconditioning, but must have adjustable controls, to be set for the level of comfort of the guest.  

*   dinner service – whilst the criteria say that such a service must be made “available”, it is meant that one must make bookings at restaurants for guests, or allow Mr Delivery access to the establishment for food delivery

*   room service and hours – this only applies to hotels now

*   statutory requirements – each province has different requirements for rezoning, trading etc, and therefore a full list had been supplied.   Now the directive is that the applicable provincial requirements must be adhered to.

*   armchairs – this had led to a debate of the exact definition of such chairs, and therefore the criterion was redefined to be a ‘seating space’ per person

*   shower over bath – a glass partition must be made available for 4 and 5-star establishments

Lesser issues in terms of feedback received related to security requirements (scrapped), room dimensions (scrapped), size of TV screen and initial directive that the TV be a flatscreen one (now dropped), down pillows (scrapped), master switch next to bed (scrapped), wardrobe size (scrapped), number of basins in 5-star bathrooms (scrapped), size and placement of mirrors (scrapped), number of clothes hangers (scrapped), breakfast duration (scrapped), and private toilet in open-plan bathrooms (criterion retained).

Another issue was the application form – yes, no matter how long one has been graded, one has to register from scratch.  Here a number of onerous and off-putting information requirements led to further controversy.  They were justified by the Tourism Grading Council as being necessary if one wants to offer accommodation to Government officials.  These information requirements have now been dropped, yet establishments have not been informed of this recent change. 

Whilst the Tourism Grading Council demonstrated its willingness to listen to its customers, the graded establishments of South Africa, its image is severly dented, and it needs to regain the trust and respect of thousands of graded establishments who are considering not renewing their grading or who were inconvenienced by the drama surrounding the attempted changes to the assessment criteria. 

Ms Kunene called me the morning after the presentation, to personally thank me for my contribution to the meeting during question time.  She impressed with her openness and willingness to hear her customers, and requested that I assist the Tourism Grading Council in spreading the word about the fact that barely any changes have in fact been made in the new grading assessment criteria, which we have already done through our previous blog post.

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

Cape Town to become top 10 world brand

Cape Town Tourism sees one of its goals as developing Cape Town into a world city by 2020.  This was announced at the Cape Town Tourism AGM by its CEO Mariette du Toit-Helmbold earlier this week.

Du Toit-Helmbold sees Cape Town developing into a top world city in 2020 in which to “live, visit, study, work and invest in”, and into a centre of innovation and creativity, welcoming 4 million international visitors annually.  It will become a favourite domestic destination too, and will be known as the ‘events capital of Africa’, she said.   “The city is clean, green and safe – recognised as one of the most livable cities in the world” in 2020, she added.

We welcome her vision that by 2020 “Cape Town now sustains a healthy year-round tourism industry with many direct flights from key markets across the world”, especially as she mentioned that feedback from Cape Town Tourism members shows that “…some establishments reporting alarmingly low occupancy levels” since the World Cup.  Also, she indicated that there was no clear picture yet about the festive season bookings, and reiterated how important it is to address seasonality variations, the winter months being a severe problem.  Events are an important means of countering seasonality, and she announced that with its funder, the City of Cape Town, Cape Town Tourism is working on an Events Strategy for the city, linking already established events with new ones held in “off-peak” season.

Du Toit-Helmbold also said that world cities such as Cape Town, and its tourism brands, must work on their “future fit”, in exploring new markets, and in investing in web, emarketing and technology to ensure that Cape Town Tourism can meet its goal of doubling its economic impact on the city in the next 10 years.   She said that more than 70 % of tourism bookings are made on-line.

On the topic of the suggested amalgamation of Cape Town Tourism and Cape Town Routes Unlimited, which Cape Town Tourism is respectfully resisting, a guest speaker Claes Bjerkne, a destination marketing expert, said that Cape Town is the “ideal master brand as it is one of the better known cities of the world’, on a par with Paris, London, San Francisco and Beijing.  Du Toit-Helmbold said that Cape Town Tourism was seeking an apolitical tourism structure for the province and the city, “driven by the private sector and supported by government”.   “Cape Town Tourism will not compromise our status as an industry-led association, and we remain committed to marketing Cape Town and its unique experience”, she concluded.

At the AGM, new directors were elected/re-elected: quantity surveyor Pierre du Plessis (we question his tourism knowledge), Susanne Faussner-Ringer (who pushed for MATCH bookings for the World Cup with her friend Nils Heckscher, which should have got both of them fired from the Board of Cape Town Tourism for their irresponsible advice to and pressure on the accommodation industry, in our opinion), Bulelwa Nobuzwe Makalima-Ngewana (Deputy CEO of the Cape Town Partnership), Sarah Struys (Events and Marketing Manager of Kirstenbosch), and Claus Tworeck (CEO of City Sightseeing Cape Town).  They join existing directors Sabine Lehmann of the Table Mountain Aerial Cableway Company, Nils Heckscher of the Winchester Mansions Hotel, Guy Lundy of Accelerate Cape Town, and Rashid Toefy, of the Cape Town International Convention Centre.

POSTSCRIPT 10/10 : Southern African Tourism Update provides extra input to the Cape Town Tourism AGM, the future of brand Cape Town, and of the funding of Cape Town Tourism, not mentioned in the Cape Town Tourism media release:

“Keynote speaker, Claes Bjerkne, CEO of Bjerkne & Co, a Swedish destination marketing consultancy, said the city and province should work together to develop a tourism strategy, “but it’s a waste of time not to use the strong city brand”. He suggested: “Let Cape Town be the driving force in the process of developing tourism in the city as well as the province.” He proposed local tourism marketers combine brand Cape Town with topics of interest – such as wine, whales, flowers, culture, golf and wildlife – to entice visitors further into the region.

Pointing out that few people knew the provinces that housed such strong city brands as Berlin, San Francisco, Paris, Beijing, Edinburgh, Amsterdam and London, he said similarly visitors to South Africa didn’t know its various regions but recognised brand Cape Town. This did not mean they would not travel further into the province to pursue their interests. The same was true overseas, he said, where tourists combined San Francisco with the Nappa Valley to taste wine, travelled to the Great Wall of China from Beijing, or left Edinburgh behind to play golf at St Andrews.

CTT CEO, Mariëtte du Toit-Helmbold, also made a strong case for Cape Town to be the brand for the city and the province and for tourism marketing to remain driven by the tourism industry and not by civil servants. “We will not compromise on the industry playing the leading role,” she said. “Cities are the super-brands of the future. Cape Town has all the potential to become this.”

Cape Town City Council Mayoral Committee for Economic Development & Tourism, Felicity Purchase, expressed continued confidence in CTT as the city’s marketer. The city will fund CTT to the tune of R38m for the next financial year.”

POSTSCRIPT 12/10:  We have amended our blog post after receiving feedback from Cape Town Tourism.  A future vision for Cape Town for 2020 was oddly written in the present rather than in the future tense in the media release.

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