Tag Archives: Cape Town Stadium

Future of Cape Town Stadium and Green Point Urban Park in hands of Cape Town residents!

The City of Cape Town has not managed to sort out its problems in making the Cape Town Stadium financially viable, and an extensive public participation process is to be launched to give ratepayers and residents in the Green Point, Mouille Point and Sea Point areas in particular an opportunity to make themselves heard about the Stadium and the ‘Green Point Park’ (sic), the City not knowing its correct name! The public has until 31 March to express its concerns and respond to the choice of options proposed.

The City blames the prolonged recession, its failure to find a premium anchor tenant, and ‘restrictive zoning laws’ for the Stadium not being financially viable, and for placing a financial burden on the citizens of Cape Town.  One wonders why the City fathers did not research the future viability of the R4 billion stadium, built only for eight World Cup 2010 matches!

According to the Atlantic Sun, City of Cape Town Councillor Bev Schafer said the participation process is one of the largest ever, and will influence how the Green Point Urban Park and the Stadium will be run.   She has urged locals living in the affected areas to study what is being proposed.  The City has printed 3000 copies of the 48-page plan, and distributed them to ratepayers’ associations, libraries, and other community bodies, with five options proposed for the area:

*   The City of Cape Town operates the Cape Town Stadium, with an anchor tenant (very likely with naming rights, which may be at the cost of brand ‘Cape Town‘)

*   An independent operator operates the Stadium, with an anchor tenant (same risk of losing the ‘Cape Town‘ brand)

*   The anchor tenant is the operator too

*   The City of Cape Town operates the Stadium, without an anchor tenant, or an independent operator runs the Stadium, without an anchor tenant

*    A public/private partnership between the City and the private sector.

Mayor Patricia de Lille is quoted as saying that the public participation process is designed to find a long term sustainable solution for the Cape Town Stadium.  The Cape Town Stadium and the Green Point Urban Park generated R13 million in the 12 month period since August last year, compared to a reported cost of more than R50 million per annum.  Mayor de Lille shared the plans to increase the revenue, which include the refurbishment of the Stadium Visitor Centre; the introduction of an on-line Fan Retail Store by the end of 2013; the creation of a conference facility; more mobile food and beverage vending machines will be allowed on the 6th floor and in the external podium area; Ajax soccer club has signed a three year deal to use the Stadium for its practice sessions; the City is still negotiating with Western Province Rugby to move to the Stadium; Big Concerts is bringing big acts such as Justin Bieber and the Red Hot Chilli Peppers; and a hotel option has been expressed, as has a hospital, a sports clinic, and a sports-related education facility.  For the Green Point Urban Park it is proposed to build an eco-centre, and to open both a tearoom and a ‘green café’.  In the Business Plan Mayor de Lille writes that making the Cape Town Stadium viable will help make Cape Town the Events Capital of Africa!

City of Cape Town Mayoral Committee Member for Tourism, Events and Marketing Grant Pascoe said that they have received four proposals for motor racing events, including Formula One,  but expressed concern and sensitivity for the residents in the area, saying that events must be spread across all of Cape Town and not just be concentrated in the Green/Mouille/Sea Point areas, and that residents in these areas have tolerated much disturbance already! ‘I don’t want to burden this area and irritate them to a point that we start (fighting) all over again’, he is quoted as saying.  The Green Point Ratepayers’ and Residents’ Association has been critical of the traffic problems which were caused by the Linkin Park and Lady Gaga concerts held at the Stadium recently.

The five options sound similar but have vastly different implications from a branding perspective, and the ratepayer burden in funding the loss in operating the Stadium, but probably make little impact on the residents on the area. What is of concern is the attempt to turn the Stadium area into a late-night party area with restaurants and bars, as well as shops, creating more noise!  The building of two four-storey buildings, one to house a hotel, sport science centre or offices, and one for parking, will cause further congestion when events are hosted at the Cape Town Stadium!

‘Business Plan for Cape Town Stadium and Green Point Park’

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

Spier Sweet Service and City of Cape Town Sour Service Awards!

The Sweet Service Award goes to Spier for its most unusual invitation to the launch of the ‘Great Gatsby’ show to be performed at the wine estate from 20 November – 31 December, based on the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel. The book has been adapted to be performed with a cast of ten on a specially built stage at Spier, with dancing, jazz, foxtrot, singing, and more. The era of Prohibition, Speakeasy, Bottlegging, Rum-Running, Giggle Water (bubbly), Moonshine (illegally distilled spirit), and Hooch (poor quality bootleg liquor) are recaptured. Bloggers and journalists were invited to the launch earlier this week, were dressed to suit the Gatsby theme if they hadn’t come prepared, and the cast performed three numbers from the show. The show price of R630 includes Gatsby-themed food and Spier wines. One is encouraged to be Gatsby-inspired in one’s dress. The beautiful car was parked outside 12 Spin Street, the venue of the launch.

The Sour Service Award goes to  the City of Cape Town, which has blood on its hands after 19 fans were injured and one died (Florentina Heaven-Popa) after an advertising billboard for Lucozade erected especially for the Linkin Park concert at the Cape Town Stadium on Wednesday took off in a gale-force South Easter gust.  The City is focussed on making as much money out of the Cape Town Stadium, its key loss-making asset, having recently created a Tourism, Events, and Marketing Directorate to market Cape Town via events involving the Cape Town Stadium in the main.  This was one of the first projects of the new Marketing department, and has left a terrible mark on brand Cape Town, and its ability to organise safe events for its residents and tourists!

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 WhaleTalesnewsletters on the www.whalecottage.com website.

SA Tourism on the ball in marketing South Africa in Africa for AFCON soccer tournament!

SA Tourism is calling on the tourism industry to get involved in an Africa marketing campaign and road show for the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) 2013 soccer tournament, to be held in Johannesburg, Durban, Port Elizabeth, Rustenburg, and Nelspruit from 19 January until 10 February next year, reports Southern African Tourism Update.  Sadly Cape Town has been excluded from AFCON 2013, an event expected to attract 150000 soccer fans from other African countries alone, due to Mayoral Committee Member for Tourism, Events and Marketing Grant Pascoe making unreasonable demands for the Host City bid!

SA Tourism is leading a road show this and next month in Ghana, Nigeria, Mozambique, Kenya, and Botswana, and is inviting tourism product and service owners to accompany them at no charge, but they will be responsible for the cost of accommodation and travel.  The Road Show in Ghana, Nigeria, and Angola will take the form of a workshop, including networking opportunities.  Not only will it focus on the soccer tournament, but it will also market South Africa as a shopping tourism destination for the continent.  The road show may well be to drum up support for ticket sales, Daily Maverick reporting that only 30000 of 500000 tickets have been sold for the tournament to date!

In addition, SA Tourism will be running an ad campaign on CNN, as well as with Supersport, reaching the English, French and Portuguese-speaking countries in Africa, to promote the soccer tournament.

The City of Cape Town had expressed its opposition to hosting this prestigious event, due to the cost burden, and sought a guarantee from the government for at least 50% of the hosting costs to be covered. The City was also looking to the Confederation of African Football and/or Local Organising Committee to cover 25 % of the costs.  Costs for the host city include the preparation of the pitch, fencing, security, the accommodation of the teams and officials, as well as transport plans, according to the Cape Argus. The City also was unhappy that the event would mean that other events could not be held at the Cape Town Stadium, meaning a loss of income, a poor motivation, given how few events are held at the stadium, less than one per month on average, and how desperate the City is to recover the running costs of the stadium.

Cape Town has been awarded a consolation prize friendly warm-up match between Bafana Bafana and Norway on 8 January at the Cape Town Stadium, as an introduction to AFCON!

AFCON is expected to cost the South African tax payers R461 million, reports The Times, some of the monies going to flying in African heads of state and Confederation of African Football officials.  R120 million will be allocated to the three host cities, and R165 million will go to police security.  One lane of the highways between the airports and soccer stadia in the host cities will be closed, as was the procedure for the 2010 World Cup. Despite the tighter economic situation, the government plans to use the tournament as a marketing exercise for the country.  Minister of Finance Pravin Gordhan confirmed that all the ‘vanity stuff’ has been cut out of the AFCON budget, to ensure responsible tournament expenditure. The ‘funding for Afcon – we’ve cut it to the bone’, added Deputy Minister of Finance Nhlanhla Nene. South Africa was awarded the AFCON tournament after the civil war in the host country Libya made the tournament unsafe.

One can only hope that SA Tourism’s road show will include representatives of Cape Town Tourism and Wesgro, to attract soccer fans attending AFCON to visit Cape Town and the Western Cape too, despite Cape Town not being a Host City. From the World Cup experience, this would appear to be unlikely.

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

New City of Cape Town Place Marketing Director Rory Viljoen to put Cape Town on the map!

While many in the Cape Town tourism industry are shaking their heads about yet another change at Cape Town Tourism, the City of Cape Town taking away the role of Destination Marketing from Cape Town Tourism four years after having given it to the tourism body, one can be grateful for two things: that a change can only be better than the little and ineffectual marketing being done by Cape Town Tourism, and that one could not wish for a better Marketing Director for brand ‘Cape Town’ than Rory Viljoen, Place Marketing Director in the new Tourism, Events and Marketing (TEAM) Directorate of the City of Cape Town.

It was a bumpy start to meeting Rory, who has only been working for the City for ten weeks, and is still suffering temporary staff in setting up his appointments.  It was third time lucky, despite a time error, to finally meet him and Daylin Mitchell, the Executive Support Officer for Councillor Grant Pascoe, the Mayoral Committee member for Tourism, Events, and Marketing, in Rory’s office in the TELKOM Tower adjacent to the Civic Centre.

Rory gave little away in the interview, instead turning the tables by asking what should be done in marketing Cape Town.  We discussed the impact of Seasonality on our businesses, and how we have been made promises in this regard by both Cape Town Tourism and the ex-Cape Town Routes Unlimited (now amalgamated into Wesgro); sharing information with the industry; generating coverage in traditional media locally and internationally with Social Media support (and not the other way around, as practised by Cape Town Tourism); Events in the winter months; addressing the lack of airline seats from Johannesburg to Cape Town on Fridays; the extreme airfares to get to Cape Town from international destinations; the confusion that has resulted amongst the tourism industry about the City’s new destination marketing directorate which some mistakenly seeing it to be Wesgro’s new marketing department; the reduced bookings via Cape Town Tourism’s tourism bureaus as tourists are booking most requirements on-line, before they leave or on their iPads; the ‘Mommy’ Tweeting by Cape Town Tourism CEO Mariette du Toit-Helmbold; the role of the V&A Waterfront in the tourism portfolio of Cape Town; the controversial trip by ten Cape Town Tourism and City of Cape Town executives to Turkey (clearly a sensitive issue, judging by Rory’s body language when the topic arose – he was not part of the delegation); the renewal of Mrs Helmbold’s contract as CEO next year; and much more.

While Rory has chosen to call his portfolio ‘Place Marketing’, he said it is just another name for Destination Marketing.   His private sector experience in marketing Distell’s brands in Africa and Europe, as well as having been South African Marketing Director of Coca Cola during the 2006 and 2010 World Cup soccer championships, shadowing the Beijing and Vancouver World Cups, and his involvement in the European Championships played in Germany and Switzerland, gives him an excellent insight in hosting events, and in creating marketing linkages.  He said that he does not know the Marketing Budget yet (we have seen that the Tourism, Events and Marketing Directorate, headed by Anton Groenewald, has a budget of R500 million per annum!), as he needs to finalise his Strategic Plan, translate that into the Marketing Budget, and then appoint the staff to execute his Marketing Strategy.  He said that he likes to work in an organised manner, step by step, ‘every chapter must stand like a book’, he said.  His biggest challenge is to find a measurement of success for his department, currently believing that arrivals at Cape Town International would be the most reliable measurement of marketing success at this stage, despite Cape Town International Service Standards Manager and outgoing Cape Town Tourism Chairman Ian Bartes warning that there would be no growth in tourism arrivals via our local airport in the next two years.

While Daylin is active on Twitter, Rory and Mr Groenewald are not.  Currently Digital and Social Media Marketing of Cape Town rests with Cape Town Tourism in their new mandate of only focusing on Tourism Marketing (with Visitor Services), but Rory indicated that they are looking to appoint a strong Media person, who will be responsible for Media Relations, Digital Marketing, Social Media Marketing, and the writing of Speeches.  One can assume that the Digital Marketing of Cape Town will move from Cape Town Tourism to the City of Cape Town once the position has been filled.

It will be interesting to see how brand ‘Cape Town’ will be packaged, with a new logo, a pay-off line, and an extensive communication campaign to support new events, the focus being to make the Cape Town Stadium commercially viable by hosting more events there, and ultimately to attract more visitors to Cape Town.

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