Tag Archives: Cape Town Routes Unlimited

Cruise liners mean ‘The World’ to the V&A Waterfront: Cape cruise crisis!

What looked like a promising five months as far as cruise liners visiting Cape Town is concerned has led to a disaster for the V&A Waterfront, its retailers, and the Cape Town tourism industry, in having permission to allow cruise liners to dock at the Waterfront quays just having been withdrawn, due to security concerns.

Just a few days ago Cape Town Routes Unlimited CEO Calvyn Gilfellan was interviewed on Kfm 94,5 about the boost to tourism from eleven cruise liners arriving in Cape Town over the next five months, including The World (returning today from a visit over New Year), The Silver Wind (arriving on 14 and then again on 24 January, and on 3 and 13 February), the Queen Mary 2 (24 – 26 January), The Seaborne (3 – 5 February), the Silver Whisperer (4 – 5 February), the Silver Spirit (14 February), the Explorer (24 – 29 February), the National Geographic Explorer (24 – 26 March), the Athena (1-3 May), the Asuka (3 May), and the Ocean Princess (5 – 7 May).  Almost all the cruise liners were booked to dock in the V&A Waterfront.

The shock decision to refuse permission for cruise liners to dock in the V&A Waterfront with immediate effect will seriously affect business for the V&A traders in particular, who would have experienced a boom period, given the cruise tourists’ ability to spend money on their dock visits.  The permission has been withdrawn, on the basis of security, passenger liners only permitted from now onwards to ‘dock in the secured Duncan Dock area without free public access’, wrote Tariq Mellet, ‘Director Immigration WC (Maritime and Aviation)’ to Piet Grobler, the Provincial Co-ordinator: Border Control Operational Co-ordinating Committee.

In reaction to this directive, which affects the arrival of The World today, V&A Waterfront CEO David Green has directed an urgent appeal to provincial Tourism Minister Alan Winde to assist in overturning this decision:  “We have indirectly received the notification attached from the Director of Immigration Western Cape.  It indicates that passenger ships cannot berth in the V & A and receive Immigration services  for “security reasons,” as “the berth is open to the public.” The apparent decision is based upon information which is factually incorrect. It is and has been routine practise ( for many years ) that the Jetty is sealed off when passenger liners ( and indeed Warships) berth. Today we have been advised that  “ The World “ a passenger ship, which berthed with us over New Year and was due to return tomorrow, on receiving this notification,  has taken the decision to berth in the main Port. The World is effectively a top end  floating apartment building  where the wealthy owners of the apartments “vote”  where  “in the world”  they would like the ship to berth – they chose to bring in the New Year in Cape Town berthed in front of the Table Bay Hotel. This decision will have a direct impact on the revenue to the V & A Waterfront and to our retailers. I do not need to explain to you the grossly inferior passenger experience offered in the port and aside from the immediate  loss of revenue I am sure this treatment  will undoubtedly discourage further visits. I would be grateful of  your assistance to overturn this ill thought out and highly detrimental decision”.

The assistance of national Minister of Tourism, Marthinus van Schalkwyk, may also be sought to overturn the decision.   For years the inadequate facilities for cruise liner arrivals in Cape Town have been a deterrent to a valuable tourism source, yet nothing has been done by the City of Cape Town or the Western Cape government to address this deficiency.  Given the number and calibre of the cruise liners scheduled to arrive in Cape Town, the time has come to urgently address this issue.

POSTSCRIPT 12/1:  It appears that our esteemed City of Cape Town Councillor for Tourism, Events and Marketing, Grant Pascoe, is polishing his image, now making media comments. Today he issued a media statement about the banning of the cruise liners in the V&A Waterfront, which we wrote about yesterday already!  One would have thought that Councillor Pascoe would have spent the time to meet with the port authorities, to resolve the issue on behalf of tourism in Cape Town!  This is his statement in the Cape Times: “The City of Cape Town notes with concern the potential negative impact that the Department of Home Affairs’ recent ruling barring cruise liners from the V&A Waterfront will have on tourism. The Department’s Director of Immigration for the Western Cape ruled that passenger liners will no longer be allowed to dock in the V&A Waterfront. With immediate effect, all passenger liners are to dock in the secured Duncan Dock. At least 13 cruise ships (including the Silver Wind, National Geographic Explorer and Queen Mary) are scheduled to visit Cape Town between January and May 2012. Most of these ships would have docked in the V&A Waterfront. In 2011, 19 visiting cruise ships accounted for approximately 18 000 visitors to the V&A Waterfront. “We are obviously uneasy about the possible impact of this ruling on Cape Town’s status and reputation as a cruise tourism destination as well as on tourism revenues to the city. The City notes concerns about security risks underlying the decision. However, we will discuss the ruling with the relevant authorities to find a way to best serve Cape Town’s tourism interests, without compromising the status of the port as a secured area,” said the City’s Mayoral Committee Member for Tourism, Events and Marketing, Councillor Grant Pascoe.”

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

Cape Town Tourism goes on holiday, contrary to its advertising slogan!

Two months ago Cape Town Tourism launched its new Ogilvy-developed advertising campaign, with the slogan ‘You don’t need a holiday, you need Cape Town’. It would appear that this slogan has not been supported by the Cape Town Tourism staff, most of whom have been on holiday over the festive period!

Seeing Cape Town Tourism CEO Mariette du Toit-Helmbold Tweet from her Pringle Bay ‘holiday shack’, as she calls it, a year ago I was astounded that our city’s tourism bureau could close down its management over the period during which Cape Town is at its fullest.  Sadly, this is true too of Cape Town Routes Unlimited, marketing the Western Cape.   Mrs Helmbold is on maternity leave until the end of April, so can justify her time off this year.  The Communications Manager Skye Grove took a trip to the Cederberg region between Christmas and New Year, she communicated on Twitter, and the new Marketing Manager Velma Corcoran is still on leave, despite only having started with the organisation in September, surprising then that she has leave to take already!

As I have not seen a Cape Town Tourism media release for a while, the last one having been the poorly written one about the tourism performance in November, I visited the Cape Town Tourism website yesterday, and noted the following:

1.   The grammar-deficient media release is still on the website, with ‘warts’ and all, and was the last media release issued, more than three weeks ago.  Given the good tourism performance over the festive period, one would have thought that Cape Town Tourism could have written about this, and proactively supplied the paper-thin newspapers with material about Cape Town, to share with their out-of-town readers!

2.   The website contains an outdated list of accommodation ‘Winters are Cool’ specials!

3.   Blogposts on the Cape Town Tourism Blog on the website contain typing errors, if there is any writing at all, as most blogposts are a Flickr pic of the day!

4.  The biggest surprise was the poor content of the ‘Beyond Cape Town’ pages,  in that

*  there is no mention of the attractions in Stellenbosch, the largest, oldest and most visible wine region in our country, in the Cape Winelands sub-section!  Wine estate names are misspelled, and the wine estates mentioned are in Stellenbosch, but are not identified as being in this town, looking as if they could be in Franschhoek from the text!

*   in the Cape Overberg section, there is no mention of the Hermanus Wine Route (and not to be found in the Cape Winelands section either), focusing only on the whales for Hermanus. Hermanus suffers badly outside of the whale watching period, and its excellent wines could be an important means of bringing tourists and locals to the town from December – May in particular.

5.  In her ‘From the CEO’ statement on the website, Mrs Helmbold announces her five month maternity leave, with Enver Duminy heading up the operation in her absence.  Interesting is that Mrs Helmbold finally acknowledges that 2011 was ‘one of the toughest years for tourism’, having tried to counter our blogposts about this crisis months ago. Badly written, her statement suggests that ‘there is some optimism in the air’!   Mrs Helmbold does not reveal her organisation’s goals and marketing plans for 2012, but writes that ‘we have been soul-searching, and have worn our hearts on our sleeves’, an interesting and innovative marketing planning approach!  Could the Communications Manager not have corrected the poor writing, one would ask, but then she is on Twitter continuously, having little time to do any other communication work for Cape Town Tourism, it would appear!

Cape Town Tourism receives R40 million from the City of Cape Town, money which is generated from the ratepayers of Cape Town. Grant Pascoe, the (DA) City Councillor responsible for the Tourism and Events portfolios on the mayoral committee, has a most annoying habit of ignoring all e-mails, telephonic messages, and Tweets directed at him, and one wonders how the City can justify the wasted expenditure of some of the projects which Cape Town Tourism sponsored in 2011, and in not delivering on marketing Cape Town, as little marketing is likely in the next four months of Mrs Helmbold’s absence!

POSTSCRIPT 5/1: Enver Duminy, Acting CEO of Cape Town Tourism, replied today, after I called him and he read the blogpost we wrote today about the non-reaction to this blogpost: “I would like to thank you for bringing some of your website comments to my attention, and the team have been tasked to review your points and amend spelling errors and remove expired content where and when possible, and as appropriate. Thank you for highlighting  the “Beyond Cape Town” sections, which the team will look into, and with the support our LTO and RTO colleagues in the regions, provide us with updated content to populate as such”.

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

SA Tourism entices tourists to holiday in ‘Paradise’!

One must salute SA Tourism in capitalising on Coldplay’s filming of its ‘Paradise’ music video in Cape Town, the Boland and the Karoo in marketing our country to tourists, something Cape Town Tourism and Cape Town Routes Unlimited had not thought of doing!

Coldplay performed in Cape Town and Johannesburg in October, and at short notice decided to film the music video for ‘Paradise’ in Cape Town, outside Paarl, on a game farm in the Karoo, and at its concert in Johannesburg.  The title of the song could not have been better chosen to reflect our beautiful country and city, and its popularity as a song, and as a fun and funky beautifully shot music video, has a tremendous tourism benefit for South Africa generally, and the Cape specifically, not costing the tourism authorities a cent.  The music video has had more than 44 million views to date, and the song has just started 2012 as the number one single on the UK hit charts, to the band’s own surprise in their Tweets.

SA Tourism is running a competition on a special Facebook promotion page, inviting those seeing the ‘Paradise’ music video on YouTube, to share with SA Tourism which part of the country ‘gives them inspiration in the same way it did for Coldplay’, reports the Australian eTravel Blackboard site.  The ten most imaginative, heartfelt, fun and spontaneous submissions from all over the world will be shortlisted, and put out to vote, to select the best. The winner will receive a 5-day holiday in South Africa, with the compliments of SA Tourism. The SA Tourism promotion proves that international tourism marketing does not need to cost the earth!

We would like to see lots more creative promotions and marketing of our country and the Cape from the tourism authorities this year, especially to the UK market, which has seen a massive drop-off, and has been our region’s tourism bread-and-butter.

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

Looking forward: 2012 a year of change

Looking at 2012, I consulted some Numerology sites, and I was reminded of the prediction that the world will end on 21 December this year, an interesting focus to start the year with, and encouraging one to make the most of this year. Adding up the numbers in 2012, giving a total of 5, the emphasis this year will be one of Change, Change and Change, as one site wrote.  A political change is forecast for the USA, more natural disasters are predicted, and the world economy looks to remain shaky.  We enter the Year of the Dragon later this month, being the 5th and a very powerful sign in the Chinese calendar, signalling change, power, and improvement.

What does that mean for us:

*  Tourism from Europe and the UK will remain depressed.  German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in her New Year’s Eve address last night that this year will be even tougher than last year, but she has promised to do everything in her power to stabilise the Euro, introduced ten years ago today, and to build a stronger bond in the European Union.  The UK market is likely to remain depressed, and no great increase in tourism numbers can be expected, with the exception of February, a popular travel month for Britons who like to get away from a bitterly cold winter, and who like to celebrate ‘Valentine’s Month’ in the Cape.  Bookings for February already look promising for Whale Cottage Camps Bay.  August has become a relatively good tourism month, despite it still being winter, with many Europeans coming on holiday.  This year this period coincides with the Olympic Games in London, which may reduce tourism numbers in the first half of the month.

*   South Africans will remain the foundation of tourism this year, and the summer season will end early, with Easter falling on the first weekend of April. However, there are six public holidays falling on weekdays this year, and these are normally good for tourism business.  A 5-day long weekend, from 27 April to 1 May, could be a last summer highlight for the hospitality industry.

Other predictions we would like to see become reality are the following:

*   Cape Town Tourism and Cape Town Routes Unlimited being amalgamated in one private sector driven body, to prevent the current duplication of marketing activity and spend, with sharper strategic and marketing thinking.  Cape Town Routes Unlimited will be incorporated into Wesgro in April. There is no sign of the new Cape Town Tourism “You don’t need a holiday, you need Cape Town” campaign or its effect, which was launched locally with great fanfare at the AGM in October, and internationally at World Travel Market in London in November.  Any work that Cape Town Tourism’s UK trade and media representative may be doing is not bearing fruit.  Its Australian consultant Ian Macfarlane seems to have vanished, his contract having ended last month.  Cape Town Tourism CEO Mariette du Toit-Helmbold is on maternity leave, and one can speculate that no marketing of Cape Town will happen until she returns, if the past month is anything to go by. We would like to see a greater transparency by Cape Town Tourism in how it is spending its members’ and Cape Town ratepayers monies (R40 million), information which Mrs Helmbold has refused to release to date!

*   A new Eat Out editor and Top 10 restaurant judge, given that the current incumbent has lost credibility, and a fairer and transparent judging process.

*   Better support of Cape Town and Winelands restaurants by locals, especially in winter, when unbelievable specials are offered

*   Better service in restaurants, shops, and in any other businesses dealing with the public.  Franschhoek, for example, is fast losing its professional image due to poorly trained staff, often left to their own devices, without any management support.

*   Better ability of businesses to accept service and other feedback, in the interest of improving things, rather than to be defensive and vindictive about it.

*   A longer life for new restaurants, which means that they need to do better research to understand their market and potential diners before opening, and must build loyalty.

*  A reorientation of when the country goes on holiday, and its bosses in particular.  It seems crazy that businesses close on 15 December for 2 – 3 weeks, and that hospitality and tourism bureau management goes on leave, at a time when business is at its peak, instead of in winter, when business is at its poorest!

*   A total revamp of labour legislation (a big dream, I know!), in discouraging employee departures without giving notice, greater checking of employee references, the development of a register of unreliable staff to the benefit of all employers, and a better balance in the rights of employers.  If there is one aspect of business that most owners complain about and are most influenced by in terms of service delivery it is staff. Such changes may lead to higher employment.

*   A better rates dispensation by municipalities, to recognise that most accommodation establishments and other tourism businesses operate at 50 % occupancy at best in winter, yet must pay rates in full.

*   More responsible reporting about the state of tourism in the Cape by the media and tourism bodies, and to not exaggerate its status.

*   More responsible behaviour in terms of the effect that our lifestyle has on climate change, the negative effects of which were well demonstrated in 2011.

*   More kindness and niceness to others, putting the ‘social’ back into Social Media!

We wish all our guests, suppliers, staff, tourism colleagues, friends, and readers a successful, healthy, and bubbly 2012!

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