Tag Archives: Cnn

WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 18 – 21/4

WhaleTalesTourism, Food, and Wine news headlines

*   CNN has included Cape Town as one of the Best Easter egg hunts around the world, in the company of London, New York, Miami, Vienna, Washington, France, Toronto, and Sydney.  The hunt for the treasure chest of Easter eggs on Table Mountain was guided by clue cards handed out by Mad Hatters Tea Party characters.

*   Fourteen travel bloggers, two from South Africa, will form part of a #MeetSouthAfrica blog campaign by SA Tourism, the bloggers travelling throughout our country and blogging about their journey, culminating in INDABA, the travel expo in Durban in early May.

*   The Banking Ombudsman has reported that 23% of the almost 5000 complaints received in the past year related to ATMs, the number of such complaints close to doubling from the year before, reports The New Age.  About 40% of the 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 →

Tourism sees strong UK dip in January 2013, after strong international growth in 2012!

SA Statistics has released the January 2013 tourism arrival statistics, and it is clear that our tourism industry is in trouble, the traditional source markets of the UK and Europe strongly down relative to the same month a year before, and American arrivals showing a minimal increase, as reported by Southern African Tourism Update.  Two of the BRICS countries, India and Brazil, continue to show strong growth.  In total tourism numbers declined by 4% to 202548 in January 2013, relative to a year ago.

The 19% decline in UK tourists is no surprise, as we have picked up the dramatic demise of UK tourists in the past two summers, due to that country’s economic recession, but still is ranked top as source country at 34393. America is the second largest source market, with 21330 arrivals. German tourists numbered 21101, a surprising decline of 6%.  France is in 6th place as a source country, with a slight decline in its arrivals. The Netherlands, another important source market. showed a decline of 18%, and is now in 8th place.

The decline in the UK arrivals is confirmed in an article in Breaking Travel News, which showed that UK travelers would be affected by the exchange rate in most countries, given the weak pound sterling, affecting their travel costs to the USA, Australia, and Europe.  Countries in which British travelers will not suffer the exchange rate so badly are Argentina, Brazil, and South Africa.  However, the higher cost of flights to these countries may cancel out the benefit of the lower exchange rates.

China surprisingly showed its first decline, by 4 %, and is ranked 4th on the tourism arrivals list, while arrivals from Brazil jumped by close to 13%.  Given tour operator Colin Bell’s discovery that the tourism arrival statistics include transit passengers, spending at least 24 hours in our country to be defined as such, it is interesting to note that about 40% of the Chinese and Brazil ‘tourist’ arrivals were in fact transit passengers travelling to another country from South Africa.  This does not apply to Indian tourists, the 15% increase in arrivals from this country reflecting the great work which is being done by SA Tourism in that country.  Its head, Hanneli Slabber, has just been recognised as Safari India National Tourism ‘Best Professional in Marketing’.

These depressing tourism arrival statistics were announced after Marthinus van Schalkwyk, national Minister of Tourism, shared at Indaba earlier this month that South Africa’s digital marketing activities have reached 1 billion people, reports themovechannel.com.  ‘Our video, banner and text adverts were displayed to the targeted audiences over 1,1 billion times’, in addition to marketing programs with CNN, National Geographic, Expedia, Facebook, TripAdvisor, and WAYN.com.  The Minister may not understand that duplication of exposure of South Africa’s advertising message would reduce the audience size.  The value of South Africa’s editorial coverage in international media is estimated at R4,6 billion.

Minister van Schalkwyk has reacted to the news that a development bank is being set up by the BRICS countries, and has said that it ‘will boost tourism among the nations’.  The increased business trips related  to setting up the development bank will be ‘prompting other tourists to follow suit’, the Tourism Minister said, according to The Telegraph. A Goldman Sachs report shows that the BRICS countries generated half the global economic growth in the last ten years.  Currently inter BRICS trade is valued at $230 billion, and is estimated to double in the next two years.

Minister van Schalkwyk was invited to lead a new United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) commission on tourism and development, at a meeting yesterday of its Executive Council in Belgrade, working with a working group of France, Germany, Kenya, Jamaica, Egypt, Mexico, Republic of Korea, Mauritania, and Belgium, reports the Southern African Tourism Update.

We appeal again to Cape Town Tourism and Wesgro to market Cape Town and the Western Cape nationally and internationally, to counter the frighteningly low bookings for June and July, one of the worst winter seasons we have seen.

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

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