Tag Archives: Airports Company of South Africa

WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 24/25 May

WhaleTalesTourism, Food, and Wine news headlines

*   Andrew Bird, Marks & Spencer Head of Trading, which includes wines, non-food, and ambient grocery, is moving to Woolworths for a two year contract as Trading Head next month.  He helped drive Marks & Spencer to be named best retailer at the International Wine Challenge in four out of the past six years.  Bird is said to become head of the ‘wine and soft drinks teams‘ at Woolworths locally.

*   The Airports Company of South Africa (ACSA) was part of a consortium that completed Terminal 3 at São Paulo’s Guarulhos International Airport, on time and on budget, for the 2014 soccer World Cup, reports The New Age. The project is described as one of the World Cup successes, the new terminal processing all international flights to the city. The capacity to handle an additional 12 million passengers to the 30 million handled annually has been created.   ACSA is also part of a consortium that Continue reading →

WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 12 May

WhaleTalesTourism, Food, and Wine news headlines

*   Tourists do not want to ‘face administrative hurdles‘ in their visa application process when travelling in Africa, said Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, Chairman of the African Union Commission, at Indaba at the weekend.  Making visa applications easier, liberalising air routes, and acting against animal poaching could increase tourism to Africa, she added.  Joint visas to travel within Africa are being considered.  The African Union is working on making Africa the preferred travel destination in fifty years from now!   Another goal is to motivate Africans to travel within Africa.

*   Indaba 2014, which closed its exhibition doors today,  attracted significantly fewer buyers than in previous years, and was criticised for having become ‘stale’, and for not having re-invented itself as was promised last year by SA Tourism’s Marketing head Jan Hutton.  While larger than the recent World Travel Market Africa exhibition held in Cape Town, it disappointed attendees, many especially smaller tourism players not planning to return next year.  The speed networking sessions were a shambles on Saturday and Sunday, with many buyers not present. Costs of catering were said to be prohibitive.

*   The Great Wine Capitals Best of Wine Tourism Awards is open to entries for the 2015 Best of Wine Tourism Awards, in the Continue reading →

WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 2/3 December

WhaleTalesTourism, Food, and Wine news headlines

*  The Airports Company of South Africa (ACSA) is planning to extend the runway at Cape Town International, to allow larger aircraft and more planes to land.

*   About one fifth of accommodation bookings in the USA will be last minute, same day ones next year, made via smartphone or tablet.

*   While European traveller numbers are showing a small 2% growth, the fact that they are taking more shorter and shorter distance holidays rather than long haul ones is worrying for tourism to South Africa.

*   hotel.info has beaten TripAdvisor, British Airways, Expedia and booking.com in being named most popular travel and leisure website of the year.

*   Cybercellar has sold a 24% share of its business to Continue reading →

Franschhoek Bastille Festival Sweet Service and ACSA Sour Service Awards

The Sweet Service Award  goes to the businesses of Franschhoek, Franschhoek Wine Valley association, DnA Events, and especially the visitors to Franschhoek over the Bastille Festival weekend, for the fantastic ‘gees’, for dressing the part in the French colours, and for making Franschhoek the most fantastic place to be last weekend. 

 

The Sour Service Award  goes to the Airports Company of South Africa (ACSA), for its increase of 35 % in airport tariffs for the current financial year, and for announcing a 37 % average annual increase, (69 % increase for international flights!) without explanation or justification, for the next three years, reports Business Report.  The tourism industry is in dire straits, and is already reeling due to the high cost of flights, as well as the strong Rand.  The increase in tariffs, which ACSA had wanted to originally increase by 133%, are a further deterrent to tourism to South Africa, something the tourism industry cannot afford.

The WhaleTales Sweet & Sour Service Awards are presented every Friday on the WhaleTales blog.  Nominations for the Sweet and Sour Service Awards can be sent to Chris von Ulmenstein at info@whalecottage.com.   Past winners of the Sweet and Sour Service Awards can be read on the Friday posts of this blog, and in the WhaleTales newsletters on the www.whalecottage.com website.