Tag Archives: Blackberry

WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 29 September

WhaleTalesTourism, Food, and Wine news headlines

*   ‘The Bachelor’ Australia is featuring Cape Town (with Table Mountain), the Winelands, and Pilanesberg Game Reserve in the last two episodes of the dating series, in which bachelor Blake Garvey shows the final three dates the beauty of the Cape.  The series has been produced by Channel Ten in Australia, in conjunction with the Australia country office of SA Tourism.  The publicity shot appears to have been taken at Delaire Graff.  Three complete series of ‘Der Bachelor‘ Germany have been shot in Camps Bay in the past three years.

*   A Memorandum of Understanding was signed between Brazil and South Africa last week, to enhance the tourism relationship between the two countries.  Tourism Minister Derek Hanekom visited Sao Paulo to attend the opening of the new SA Tourism office in that city, and to visit the ABAV Travel Tradeshow.  Brazil is the last of the BRICS countries with which South Africa has signed such a Memorandum of Understanding.  Last year tourism from South Africa grew by 8%, and from Brazil close to 6%.

*   South African winemakers are getting younger, writes Wall Street Journal‘s Will Lyons, agreeing with UK wine writer Continue reading →

World Travel Market Africa: Day 2 very disappointing and unprofessional, focus on Mobile Marketing!

WTM Africa Banner Whale Cottage PortfolioI was so impressed with the talks in the Event programme of World Travel Market Africa on Friday that I returned yesterday to the Cape Town International Convention Centre to listen to some more.  It was a much more disappointing and unprofessional experience than on Friday.

It was a shame that the afternoon session was very quiet for all at the exhibition,  having to compete with the Stormers playing Highlanders. It did make finding parking outside the Convention Centre easy though.  In between two talks I went into the Media Centre, and was horrified at how rude the security person was, questioning my presence there, after I had used it the day before as well without question, annoying too as I had blogged about the first day yesterday!  It is disappointing that the quality of the food at the Convention Centre, which had improved greatly after the arrival of Chef Warwick Thomas almost a year ago, was uninspiring in the Media Centre, with some pieces of feta, lots of olives, cherry tomatoes, green leaves, and cucumber slices (the day before they came with mini pita bread), baby potatoes and slices of roast beef with stir fry vegetables (the day before much better rice and tender chicken breasts), and fruit and a mini milktart, which leaked all its content the minute one used the spoon (compared to the excellent fruit tarts and WTM Africa desserts Whale Cottage Portfoliochocolate mousse served the day before).   At 15h00 the content of the small bar fridge, consisting of cold drinks and water, had been cleared out, and they were not refilling it for the next three hours until closing time, because the budget limit for drinks had been reached!  The day before a Convention Centre staff member announced that no more drinks could be had by the writers using the Centre, despite the fridge still being three quarters full!  This all happened despite Natalia Thomson, the PR consultant for the exhibition being in the Media Centre, but she did nothing about the drinks shortage, despite the feedback to her. Continue reading →

Cape Town U2 360° concert will have added to billions in city coffers

The U2 360° concert in Cape Town on Friday evening will have contributed largely to the R 4 billion the City of Cape Town estimates is generated annually for the local economy from live performances, with 72000 spectators having attended a visually stunning and extremely well organised concert at the Cape Town Stadium. 

Writing in the Sunday Argus, the City of Cape Town’s  Executive Director of Economic, Social Development and Tourism, Mansoor Mohamed, states that films and events  are the largest contributors to the Cape Town economy, the film industry generating R5 billion, and conferences and live events R4 billion each.  Mohamed writes that it is not only income that is generated, but jobs are created too.   The services and products required to host such events go into the pockets of mainly Cape Town-based businesses, which in turn will pay for rates and taxes, and thus share the burden of payment of these to generate income for the city, but they will also share the benefit of the use of these monies (an excellent example is the wonderful new Green Point Park).

Writing about the contribution of the film industry to Cape Town, Mohamed mentions the two movies currently being filmed in Cape Town – ‘Safe House’ wrapped up filming on Kloof Street over the weekend, and stars Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds, who have been seen eating at Cape Town restaurants, and hanging around in Camps Bay, another location for the movie.  ‘Judge Dredd’ is another movie being filmed, and the two movies combined have a production budget of R400 million, going to two Cape Town companies (Moonlighting and Cape Town Film Studios, respectively), and their suppliers.  In addition, still productions, and print advertising and TV commercial shoots contribute to the economy.   Mohamed requests Cape Town residents to be tolerant of road closures and other inconveniences linked to these, in understanding that every R1 billion income allows 15000 jobs to be sustained in the city.

The Cape Town International Jazz Festival generated R685 million to the local economy, and created 2000 jobs, mentioned by President Zuma in his Station of the Nation address ten days ago.   It attracts 35 000 attendees, and runs over ten days, incorporating local art, culture and heritage, and local musicians blended with international stars such as George Benson.   Some of the local musicians performing at the Jazz Festival have received  bookings on international stages as a result of their performances at the Festival.  

The Pick ‘n Pay Cape Argus Cycle Tour contributes R650 million to the local economy. It has attracted the attention of international VIP’s such as Matt Damon and Lance Armstrong, who have participated, and this has been recorded in the world media, having a tourism benefit too.  This year executives from top companies such as RIM (manufacturers of Blackberry), Sainsbury in the UK and Vodafone Europe will participate in the event.   Some Cycle Tour lovers are said by Mohamed to have bought houses in Cape Town, and they pay their rates and taxes annually and in advance, he writes!  “They create tomorrow’s tourists and South Africa’s future foreign investment”.  He added that events such as the Cycle Tour, the Jazz Festival and the U2 concert play an important role to ‘start, facilitate or help to close deals’.

The recent Mining Indaba, which was held at the Cape Town International Convention Centre, filled up all surrounding hotels, created a taxi shortage in the city, and filled up restaurants in Cape Town on a scale not often experienced in the city.   Delegates attending were from Africa, Brazil, Russia, India and China, amongst others.    Similarly, the Design Indaba taking place at the moment as a Conference, Expo and Film Festival, is staging top international designers, such as Alberto Alessi, Michael Wolff, billionaire Mark Shuttleworth and trend forecaster Li Edelkoort, with about 37000 delegates attending, according to Cape Town Tourism.  The Design Indaba attracts them to Cape Town, the city enjoying the most glorious weather currently, and therefore making future tourists out of these delegates, one can confidently predict, and more business deals benefiting the city could flow from this event, contributing R 232 million per annum.   At the Design Indaba the latest updated Cape Town Design Route map  will be launched, marketing some of the city’s top design artists and their businesses.

In September the World Veterinary Congress takes place in the Cape Town International Convention Centre, and will be attended by 3000 delegates, and contributing R30 million to the economy.   Other conferences to be hosted this year include the 4th Pan African Pain Congress (500 delegates), the World Congress of the World Federation for Mental Health (800 delegates), the Global Forum for Health Research Forum 2011 Meeting (1500 delegates), World Conference of the International Association for Educational and Vocational Guidance (600 delegates), The Southern African Association for Learning and Educational Differences Conference (500 delegates), and the World Economic Forum on Africa (2000 delegates).

The 20th Cape Town Pairs, the largest sponsored open bowls event in South Africa, was held at the Glen Country Club in Clifton last week, and attracted 36 teams from around the country, as well as from the United Kingdom, Namibia and Zimbabwe.   The gale force Southeaster almost forced a change in venue, blowing over 100 km/hr!   We congratulate our Whale Cottage Camps Bay guests Phil Downs and Greg Bingham from Johannesburg for having won the hotly contested tournament.

The Cape leg of the Cell C Tour of SA 2011 takes place over the weekend, and covers Gordon’s Bay, Grabouw, along the Theewaterskloof Dam, Franschhoek, the Helshoogte Pass in Stellenbosch, and finishes in Paarl, 120 cyclists participating in the race, reports the Cape Argus.

The J&B Met and the Cape Epic have an economic impact of R 200 million each, and the Two Oceans Marathon R223 million.  Mohamed has estimated that the city’s events and the film industry jointly add more than R 15 billion to the local economy. 

The benefit of these events reaches the hospitality industry too.  Six out of our 20 guests staying at Whale Cottage Camps Bay this past weekend flew down from Durban, to attend the U2 concert, and they made a three-day ‘weekend’ out of it.   Three of the U2 band members ate at Pierneef á La Motte last week, each visit widely reported (Bono and The Edge’s visit at La Motte even made the Sunday Times), which will attract more business to this wonderful Winelands wine estate.  Cargo Carriers has booked out Whale Cottage Camps Bay for the Argus Cycle Tour weekend, to accommodate its team over three days.   Delegates attending the Mining Indaba stayed at Whale Cottage Camps Bay too.

And a final note on the U2 concert – it was a ‘must attend’ concert, with amazing lighting effects on The Claw and the 360° screen ensured that every attendee saw the band on the relatively small stage, no matter where they were sitting or standing.  Many did not know most of the U2 music performed, but the performances of Amazing Grace, Stand by Me with Yvonne Chaka Chaka, and Without You were real crowd pleasers.  I did not pick up sound distortion, but read complaints about this on Twitter.  The quick and easy in and out of the stadium was commendable, and the event was run by Big Concerts without any hiccups, it was reported.   Replacing the Stadium pitch for the concert cost Big Concerts R803000 alone.  Taxis were in good supply before and after the concert, and the R50 per trip between Green Point and Fresnaye was the best money I have spent in a long time!  The long sit, from 7.30 – 11.30 pm, was the only off-putting part, as the seats are not the most comfortable.   Neil Diamond is the next big name performer at the Cape Town Stadium, his concert taking place on 11 April.

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

SA Blog Awards 2010 organisers’ response to criticism poor!

Despite posting an invitation via Twitter to the SA Blog Awards organising committee of JP Naude, Dave Duarte and Chris Rawlinson to respond to our criticism of the SA Blog Awards 2010, we received nothing more than a not-so-understandable Direct Message on Twitter from Chris Rawlinson: “I think if you had taken a few mins to call me you may have most of what you said is simply not true. Hope all well. Chris”

In addition, the organising committee posted a response, two days after our blog post appeared, to the criticism documented not only on our blog, but also written by many other bloggers (see via a Google search), on their website www.sablogawards.com, in the News section, and not on their Home Page, where it should have been featured.  Massive criticism of the Awards organisation also swamped Twitter on Sunday!  One would have thought that the organisers would have sent the response to the criticism to each of the nominees by e-mail, to win their favour for the 2011 Awards!

The following issues raised have not been addressed in the reply of the Organising Committee:

1.   The change in rules in the Awards competition over the two month period

2.   The exclusion from the Awards dinner for the Top 10 finalists, originally indicated to be open to all

3.   Voting at nomination stage

4.   Organisers’ names not revealed

5.   Judges names not revealed, and questionable capabilities of some judges, in not being bloggers

6.   Poor standard of organisation generally

7.   No communication about the rules to those that entered

8.   Massive changes between the 2009 and 2010 competition procedure, categories, prizes and dinner inclusion/exclusion

9.  Sponsorship of some categories, but not all

10.   Role of Afrigator

11.   The controversial choice of www.watkykjy.co.za as Best Blog in South Africa.

12.  Not mentioned previously is the male dominance of the organising committee (3 males), executive judges (5 males) and judges (48 of the 64 were male).  I would like to predict that there are more female than male bloggers, and therefore they may not have been able to appreciate the female touch.  We suggest a more balanced gender distribution for 2011!   From what I could see at the Vista Bar, there were definitely more male than female winners.

We are delighted to read that each of the Top 10 finalists in each category will receive a ‘digital badge’ to feature on their blogs.   We also acknowledge their salute to bloggers and the great work that they do, and the thanks expressed to all participants.  

What is really obvious from the reply is that traditional media such as PR featured more strongly than social media in marketing the SA Blog Awards, an absolute contradiction, given that blogging is the foundation of social media marketing.  The Twitter presence was poor, and the SA Blog Awards should have had a blog!

This is the official response from the SA Blog Awards to criticism received:

“On behalf of the SA Blog Awards we would like to thank all of the participants who contributed this year. These include the public, the nominees, the South African Bloggers and the judges. A special thanks to News 24, our other sponsors and suppliers and partners, without who the awards would not have been possible.

A tremendous effort was made this year to move the SA Blog Awards to a new level. We feel that this has been accomplished. Where there are a few criticisms in the blogging industry, we welcome these and will look to learn from those that are factually correct. In addition we will shortly be implementing our review process, which we hope all will participate in.
 

The SA Blog Awards has been run by volunteers and goodwill up to now and the time and effort has been quite taxing. The new CEO, JP Naude, stepped in after a casual conversations with Chris Rawlinson and Dave Duarte, and recognising the potential of the SA Blog Awards began implementing new support structures, media policies and other processes on a very short notice, and as such was still saddled with some systems which had been in place in the previous years. JP is well aware of the current flaws and has already, in a very short time added enormous additional value. JP immediately recognised that the first priority was to re-establish the credibility and integrity of the SA Blog Awards.
 

Contrary to what has been written in the public space regarding the nomination, registration and voting phases. (sic) We made every effort to notify bloggers to register; we did this via the Afrigator database, email, twitter and notifications on our site. In addition we notified former voters of the nomination phase. During the nomination phase, the public vote phase and the judging phase we continually asked for nominees to register their contact details with us. After all phases had closed we still continued asking nominees to register their contact details. To date we are still struggling to get final correct details, in some cases nominees entered incorrect email addresses. During this process we manually went to the blogs and looked for contact details or mailed them from their site requesting details. Where we had contact details we used them to the best of our ability.
 

When we talk about moving the blog awards up to a new level, we mean an improved voting process, more awareness for the bloggers of South Africa, better criteria for the judges to understand, and ensuring an equal platform for all nominees. All of these were done, but will again be reviewed in order to find the best possible formula. 
 

We asked judges which were subject related to the category to judge. This means the category was judged by an expert in the subject matter of that category which hopefully will assist the bloggers with better recognition, should they choose to seek endorsements or financial support for their blog.
 

This year the SA Blog Awards was supported by News24 who have applied their online support for the bloggers. In addition the SA Blog Awards radio partner, Good Hope FM, supplied radio coverage pre -and post the event. Further has been garnered from the SABC News, SAFM, Cape Talk, 702, eTV News, The Digital Edge and several other online publications. All this was for the first time arranged with the kind support of Atmosphere PR, which added a much more professional dimension than in previous years.
 

As a sponsor and supplier to the SA Blog Awards, Ogilvy Cape Town added their support with additional fun and creativity using a digital photographic concept on the night. These social media pictures have been published and will surely bring enjoyment to all bloggers and other viewers.
 

Our emphasis this year was on the readers of the blogs, with the judges in place to act as the guardians of the categories. We believe the readers of the blogs are of great importance and as such gave them a greater say in the voting process. The public vote counted for 70% and the judges vote 30%. This led us to the 24 hr voting system. This system allowed for blogs with regular readers to show their appreciation, and as such the blogs which have a loyal regular following rose to the top. Falling in line with our policy to continue striving for a better formula this process will be reviewed.
 

We increased the number of active voters in excess of 300% from 2009 to 2010.
 

Our judges were given several criteria to look at, these included, Design, Content Quality, Reader Engagement, Relevance to the category, and Overall Experience. These are factors that we believe make a good blog and bring the reader to the forefront. A factor we believe the judges must prioritise during scoring.
 

Finally we asked an executive judging panel to look at the winners of each category in order to determine an overall winner. The Executive Judging panel then scored the top three blogs they thought were most deserving.  These scores were compiled and an end result calculated to indicate the final overall winner. The results were conclusive.
 

The night itself was an overwhelming success bar one or two glitches. The night was invite only, this meant we arranged an event which was limited in numbers, however free to the nominees and invited guests. The venue, The One & Only, we believe was befitting the stature of the event and was appropriate considering that we were recognising the best bloggers in South Africa. Furthermore the night was well arranged, sound was excellent, light, and multimedia quality was good. In addition, our MC Mumzy was also exceptional.  We would have loved to have all top ten nominees at the awards, but during the 2010 stage this was just not logistically or financially feasible.
 

In terms of prizes we have had queries on several fronts, many say prizes are not necessary and that the prize is the prestige of winning, some say there should be financial incentives. Again we will engage our audience and ask the question.  Which do they prefer? Our overall winner received an iPad from News 24, a Black Berry from Vodacom and vouchers from, Rocket seed, Sunglass Hut and Obox. In addition we commissioned a fantastic glass sculpture as the overall award, again a step up from years before.
 

The category winners each received a glass award engraved with the details of that category as well as the aforementioned vouchers. Each top ten finalist will still receive a digital  badge to showcase on their blog, with category winners, and the overall winner receiving relevant winners badges.
 
Finally we engaged local computer wholesaler Infinitix to supply us with PC equipment for a charity of our choosing. We chose the community centre in Bridgetown. This community is plagued by violence, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, teenage pregnancy and several other social evils. Marlon Parker from Rlabs is involved with this community centre, and they have made a significant improvement in changing the lives of many within this community using social media. We trust that the PC equipment we handover to Marlon will help him with his continued effort to use social media to better the lives of those suffering under the hardships they live in.


We once again urge the bloggers of South Africa to stand by the SA Blog Awards and work towards improving the process together with us. The respect of the blogging community lies in the hands of the bloggers.


At the SA Blog Awards we will continue to seek, recognise and reward the best bloggers in South Africa. Our work is however not finished. We will keep the pulse of the SA Blog Awards alive in South Africa constantly.


Once again congratulations to the bloggers of South Africa whether good or bad, big or small, we are proud of the fact that you are blogging. You are the new voice of society”. 

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