Tag Archives: Cape Town Stadium

WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 9 January

WhaleTalesTourism, Food, and Wine news headlines

*   ‘Cape Town’s most stylish hotels’ feature in the Telegraph Travel article, which focuses on more than just the Mother City’s hotels.  Given Cape Town’s status of World Design Capital 2014, Woodstock, Bree Street, and Long Street are recommended for arts, sculptures, jewellery, and crafts.  Hemelhuijs and The Pot Luck Club are recommended restaurants.  The Mount Nelson, One&Only Cape Town, Cape View, The Clarendon, and Ellerman House are recommended as accommodation establishments.

*   Six of Africa’s twelve top music festivals are hosted in South Africa, and include Oppikoppi (in Limpopo province, the largest local music festival); Up the Creek (in Swellendam); Cape Town International Jazz Festival; Splashy Fen (at Underberg); AfrikaBurn (in North Cape province); and Rocking the Daisies (in Darling).

*   National soccer team Bafana Bafana arrived in Cape Townlast weekend, in preparation for the African Nations Championship, which kicks off at Cape Town Stadium on Saturday.

*   James Romanow, writing in the New Mexico Leader Post, says that drinking a House of Mandela wine is a fitting tribute to the late Nelson Mandela.

*   A manual of information published by (£30 million a year budget) Visit Britain, which was targeted at accommodation establishments and tourism players in the UK to guide them in dealing with tourists from around the world, has been criticised for ‘racial stereotyping‘!   For example, the manual describes: Continue reading →

Cape Minstrels march colourful yet disruptive start to New Year in Cape Town!

Minstrels 2014I did not venture near the city centre on Saturday to see the annual Cape Minstrels march, held on 4 January this year for the first time, to allow more participants than would be the case on the traditional Tweede Nuwe Jaar (2 January), when some of the troupe members would have to be back at work.   It is a shame that a tradition with so much heritage should be marred with political posturing by the City of Cape Town and the ANC, and that the Cape Town city centre streets were gridlocked yet again.  More than 40000 minstrels were reported by The New Age to have participated.

The city centre was largely closed off for parking for the day, Wale Street being on the route and having metal stands to prevent any parking.  We read that some Minstrel march enthusiasts camped on the city’s pavements from the night before, to get the best view of the march.  The day started off badly, the troupes leaving Bo Kaap later than announced.

As the 75 troupes marched down from Bo Kaap via Wale Street to the Grand Parade, it caused traffic mayhem on Buitengracht Street in both directions, this street being an important road in and out of Cape Town, as well as on Long Street, as one could not cross Wale Street.  We were told that despite horrific parking Continue reading →

How festive will the Festive Season be for Cape Town and Western Cape?

Festive Lights Switch On 2012City of Cape Town Councillor for Tourism, Events, and Marketing, Grant Pascoe, has a lot of image polishing to do after he and his Tourism, Events, and Marketing Directorate were in the dog box, having to undergo an embarrassing forensic audit recently.  It is annoying to read his misleading optimistic view of the Festive Season, clearly without substantiation.  The same applies to a media release from Cape Town Tourism, making projections based on poor market research techniques.

The Councillor brags in an article in the City of Cape Town’s weekly newsletter, just two days after the Cape Town Tourism media release was dispatched,  that Cape Town ‘is gearing up for a bumper festive season‘, undefined and unsubstantiated, adding that the City plans to position itself as the ‘Events Capital of Africa’, a surprise given that no events have been created since the Councillor established his Directorate headed by Anton Groenewald.  In fact the Directorate, with an annual budget of R500 million, has not shown any sign of tourism marketing action, other than laying on some small scale soccer matches at the Cape Town Stadium, a sport which Pascoe personally is particularly fond of!  Groenewald ironically was quoted recently in saying that Cape Town has lost out on a number of events due Continue reading →

Cape Town loses numerous events due to lack of bidding budget!

 

 Cape Town StadiumThe City of Cape Town has lost 12 bids for new Events for Cape Town in the past six months, and has lost two existing events to other cities, said Anton Groenewald, Executive Director of the City of Cape Town Tourism, Events, and Marketing Directorate, at the Annual General Meeting of Cape Town Tourism two weeks ago.

According to Southern African Tourism Update, Groenewald blamed the ‘City’s limited bidding budget‘ and the stronger international currencies of other bidding countries for the poor track record. The weaker Rand this year affected the costs of bidding for international events, he said:  ‘Exchange rate fluctuation impacts on our ability to bid because almost all competitive bids are in euros, pounds or dollars. This means that at the time of bidding earlier this year, the exchange rate was such that events and concerts at that time became financially unviable because the dollar or euro equivalent was more than we could absorb. Secondly, events and global brands are asking higher and larger fees because other city destinations are paying larger upfront fees to secure their participation. So a fee last year of R3,5m for an event has now increased to US$1,5m (R9,9m), because that is what another destination paid this global brand. We simply cannot compete at these rates.  While Cape Town seems to enjoy international recognition and awareness as a destination, what we do not have is an increase in enquiries and how to convert this into purchases’.

Groenewald’s Directorate has a massive budget at R560 million, out of the Continue reading →