Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines
* AirBnB is increasing in popularity, and becoming a greater threat to hotels, especially as it is accepting hotel room listings at its attractive 3% commission compared to the norm of 15-25%, and because the guests are verified, reports MarketWatch!
* Reports speculate that the Formula One could be held in Cape Town Continue reading →
Tour operators say South African accommodation has become too expensive for their UK clients, and they have called on local accommodation suppliers to relook their prices for 2011, reports South African Tourism Update.
Portfolio of Places representative in the UK, James Westrip of Africa Collection, says that the “good-value-for-money perception” of South Africa has gone in the past year. This changed perception about tourism prices, coupled with tough economic times in the UK and the strong Rand “…is proving problematic for us all”, he said. He feels that “SA is pricing itself out of the market”. Portfolio of Places has experienced its worst year ever in its more than 20-year existence, we have been told.
Another operator said that it is no longer feasible for local establishments to increase their rates by 10 % annually, in excess of the inflation rate. These increases effect the value for money perception of South Africa, says Louise de Waal of Baobab Travel. She stated that budget accommodation options often are questionable as far as quality goes, and therefore cannot be booked. Tourvest Inbound’s Martin Wiest says that high pricing makes our country less competitive globally.
&Beyond’s Gary Lotter acknowledges that not all accommodation establishments have increased their prices above the inflation rate, or at all, but it is the strong Rand that is the root of the problem. He also said that if establishments were to drop their rates, they could receive more business, although this is not guaranteed.
Westrip also complained about establishments charging their direct clients better rates than they do tour operators, even though their clients may be a once-off and tour operators usually are loyal to establishments and book them regularly. De Waal queried the wisdom of last minute rate reductions, and called for early-bird discounts instead.
It is interesting to read that tour operators cry wolf about high rates when it is the operators that are exceptionally greedy in their commission demands. Africa Collection takes 20 % commission on bookings it gives Portfolio of Places clients, on top of close to the entry level R20000 annual advertising costs for the Bed and Breakfast Collection advertisers. While the standard commission rate is 10 %, tour operators tend to do business with establishments if they can get commissions of 20 % or more, leading their business to go to hotels rather than guest houses and B&B’s, which would be far more affordable for tourists.
It may well therefore be the tour operators that are the cause of the loss-of-value-for-money image that they are complaining about!
A survey on the Southern African Travel News website shows that the majority of respondents indicated that they have frozen their rates.
Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com Twitter: @WhaleCottage
For the past six weeks all attempts at obtaining minutes of two Special General meetings called to change the Constitution of the Cape Whale Coast Destination Marketing Organisation (DMO) have failed, with an e-mail from its Vice-Chairman, Daniel Acker, refusing access to the minutes both in my capacity as a member of the Hermanus Tourism Bureau and as a writer of this blog, without approval at the next Board meeting! We question what the Cape Whale Coast DMO is trying to hide by not making the minutes of the two meetings available. Maybe the Cape Whale Coast payoff line ‘wonders never cease’ is apt, given that the DMO is working with municipal funding generated from Overstrand ratepayers, and therefore transparency should rule!
More than two years ago the Cape Whale Coast DMO was established by the Overstrand Municipality, which is responsible for the municipal services of the area stretching from Rooi Els in the west to Gansbaai in the east. The DMO is based in Hermanus, and half of the Board members are from Hermanus, under the Chairmanship of Misty Waves Hotel Manager Clinton Lerm.
When the Cape Whale Coast DMO was established, its constitution automatically made all business owners along the Overstrand members of the DMO, if they were paying rates and taxes. No membership fee was payable. The DMO’s main task, as per its name, was to market the Overstrand towns as a joint tourism destination and to manage the tourism bureaus in each of these towns . The same constitution contained a directive that a CEO would be appointed, to manage the DMO. This appointment still has not happened. This means that a Board of 14 Directors manages a Section 21 company with only one staff member, and therefore the directors of the Board have taken over management positions for the DMO. For example, Lerm’s mother Maxie handles Marketing and Public Relations for the DMO, and Clinton Lerm and Daniel Acker (of People Management Solutions Group, a labour practitioner in Hermanus, with no tourism business interests) represented the DMO in May at the ITB tourism trade show in Berlin, and another in Russia (an insignificant tourism market for Hermanus!).
Earlier this year the DMO changed its Constitution of 28 November 2007, at a second Special General meeting held on 8 March at the Lerm’s Misty Waves Hotel, with a resolution seconded by Chairman Clinton Lerm’s father and Director Maxie Lerm’s husband Henry (after a first Special General Meeting on 1 March had failed due to not attracting a required quorum of 100 attendees – only 14 members attended). The change to the constitution was motivated to the DMO members on the basis of the changes made to the ‘Municipal Finances & Companies Act’ (no such Act exists – it is called the Municipal Financial Management Act, and it does not appear to contain any clauses that would have necessitated the constitutional changes made), the minutes of the meeting of 1 March stated! The major change was that Overstrand ratepayers no longer were automatically members of the DMO, and allowed the DMO to set up membership of its tourism body in competition to the tourism bureaus in the Overstrand area. The minutes of the 8 March meeting are very brief, and do not state who attended the meeting – bizarrely the Constitution allows a second Special General Meeting to be held a week after the first one if it fails to attract a quorum, and can conduct its business as long as at least one member is present!
What attracted attention to and the first criticism of the DMO was that the DMO has set up a kiosk near the key whale-watching area in Hermanus, from which it was taking accommodation bookings only for its members, and not for all members of the Overstrand tourism bureaus. These members are now asked to pay a double membership, to belong to both bodies, yet each tourism bureau reports to the DMO, an unheard of model of tourism marketing, if Cape Town Routes Unlimited, the provincial marketing body, is the role model for the DMO. Even more curiously, the Hermanus Tourism Bureau, which has an unfortunate location at the old railway station building, had to vacate its offices due to construction work close by, and was not given the kiosk, so that it can be easily found by tourists requiring accommodation and other tourism information.
Even more odd is that as a result of two competing tourism bodies in Hermanus, the town now has two whalecriers! The original whalecrier of Hermanus, who was an appointee of the Hermanus Tourism Bureau, had his appointment terminated due to an offence, just as the DMO was heading for Berlin. Desperate to have a whalecrier on show, the DMO appointed the whalecrier, and took him to Berlin at short notice. He has been appointed by the DMO to man its kiosk, and the Hermanus Tourism Bureau has appointed its own whalecrier!
Late last year we questioned these actions of the DMO,coupled with the conflict of interest in Clinton Lerm being both the Chairman of the Hermanus Tourism Bureau and of the DMO. This resulted in a letter from the DMO’s lawyers, threatening legal action. Nothing came of this threat, probably as the DMO management realised that a number of dissatisfied Overstrand tourism bureau members feel as I do.
In July the DMO held its AGM, and on the basis of its constitutional amendment, disallowed any Overstrand tourism bureau members from attending the meeting if they did not hold DMO membership, and were also not allowed to be nominated or elected to the Board of the DMO. This is when I started asking questions, requesting a copy of the DMO Constitution (previously this was freely available on the Overstrand website www.overstrand.gov.za), and the minutes of the meetings approving the constitutional changes. It took four weeks to receive the e-mailed copy of the Constitution, and two days ago the following officious and somewhat threatening e-mail was received from Daniel Acker (all correspondence had been addressed to Clinton Lerm!):
“This response is done without prejudice of the rights of the author, Cape Whale Coast Destination Marketing Organisation (herein after referred to as ‘CWC DMO’), or the Overstrand Municipality. All rights of these personae therefore remain reserved herein.
Your email herebelow (sic) has been read, and the tone & content thereof has been noted. We place on record herewith that we shall not respond thereto in full, at this time, and reserve the right to do so at a later stage and in the appropriate forum.
Regarding your request, related to the minutes ‘minutes that approved the change of the Whalecoast DMO’ . We assume that you refer herein to the minutes related to changes to the Constitution that were presented to, and approved by, the Counsellors (sic) of the Overstrand Municipality. These minutes are available to members of the CWC DMO, and our records show that neither you, nor your establishment, are members of the CWC DMO. Your request in this regard shall therefore have to be tabled at the next full board meeting, for consideration.”
What the members of the tourism bureaus in the Overstrand want is to be part of the DMO by virtue of their membership of the tourism bureaus which report to the DMO, and that bookings will be taken at the kiosk for all members of tourism bureaus in the Overstrand at no charge of membership, but on payment of a standard 10 % commission of the booking value (the DMO charges 12% commission in addition to its membership fee). Neither the old nor the amended constitution of the Cape Whale Coast gives the DMO the duty to run a tourism bureau in opposition to those already operating in the Overstrand.
Furthermore, the Constitution does not prescribe that nominees for the Board must be members of the DMO (for example, a representative of the Overstrand Municipality is specified as having to be a director), nor does it prescribe that only DMO members can vote for the election of its Board of Directors, or on any other matter – it was confirmed that Hermanus Tourism Bureau members were not allowed to be nominated as Directors, nor voted for at the recent DMO AGM, according to an e-mail sent to me by Daniel Acker. Members furthermore question why the Misty Waves Hotel features so prominently as the venue of the DMO meetings, and how two co-owners of the hotel can serve on the DMO Board, one of them handling the PR and Marketing for the DMO. Whilst the Constitution defines the role of the Chairman of the DMO to be to lead the Board, to induct the directors, to plan meetings, and to ‘support the CEO’, it is questioned why Chairman Clinton Lerm, and not his mother Maxie, went to Berlin and Russia to represent the DMO, and why Daniel Acker had to go as well. The duplication in tourism offices and in whale criers is also questioned, all being wasteful expenses.
It would appear that pressure on Chairman Clinton Lerm may be leading to some changes, and it is rumoured that he has resigned as Chairman of the Hermanus Tourism Bureau, due to the conflict of interests in heading both bodies, something we pointed out in our blog post of 28 December already. However, he has not yet formally announced his resignation, nor confirmed it when we requested this of him by e-mail.
POSTSCRIPT 2/9: The Comments section for this blog post makes for interesting reading, in setting out two points of view – two guest house owners’ perspectives, who argue along the lines of this post, and that of a Director of the Cape Whale Coast DMO, who protects the interests of the DMO.
Furthermore, the Hermanus Tourism Bureau has e-mailed its members an article which appears in the Hermanus Times today, written by Clinton Lerm. It justifies what has happened constitutionally, and announces that members of the Overstrand tourism bureaus will automatically become members of the DMO, once this constitutional change has been approved at a Special General meeting of the DMO. Taking bookings at the Market Square kiosk for all Overstrand tourism bureau members is also receiving the DMO’s consideration – we applaud the DMO for listening to their “customers”, and wonder why this was not dealt with correctly from the word go!
Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com
Today we celebrate the opening in Hermanus of the first Whale Cottage 14 years ago. Having an all-women team of staff, it is even more special that our anniversary co-incides with Women’s Day today – I salute my ladies, and thank them for all they do for our guests. Whale Cottage Hermanus has been heavily booked for the long weekend, and all Whale Cottage guests have been served sparkling wine with their breakfast this weekend, to celebrate our milestone.
Filled with nostalgia, I look back at the early days of running our Whale Cottage Hermanus, then located on Main Road – a great location initially in terms of visibility (we had a blue-and-white striped roof in those days, similar to our Whale Cottage Franschhoek). Our inspiration for the name came from the Victorian cottage in which we set up our first Whale Cottage in 1996, and in honour of the Southern Right whales that became so popular, and put Hermanus on the map, in offering the best land-based whale watching in the world.
There was no internet in our world of guest housing in those days, and we all only advertised in Portfolio’s Bed & Breakfast Collection, which cost us around R 12000 for a third of a page in those days. We all hated Portfolio, largely due to its dictatorial and unapproachable owner Liz Westby-Nunn. Their power was tremendous, as they introduced the first attempt at “grading” our establishments, giving them a yellow, purple or red shield, implying different levels of luxury. The annual visits for their inspections filled us with fear, and we were not allowed to question their instructions as to what had to be changed. One dared not speak against the company (even though we were paying advertisers) nor argue their directives, and we parted ways with Portfolio when their greed extended to charging commission for bookings on their website, in addition to the ever-increasing cost of their advertisements.
The internet opened up to us at the same time, and it was a huge relief to see how well we did advertising on the accommodation websites SA Venues and Cape Stay, and the former still holds. Networking with fellow guest house owners became an important source of business, especially in Camps Bay, where we run the Camps Bay Accommodation Association, and we pass all overflow enquiries to our 24 members. We also share industry information with each other.
After we opened the seafacing Whale Cottage Camps Bay in 1998, we received feedback from our guests that they were missing a seaview in Hermanus, so we set upon the search for a new property to be set up as a guest house, with a seaview. We found such a property on Westcliff Drive, on the way to the new Harbour, with a magnificent view of Walker Bay, and opened it in 2002, selling the Main Road property. Barry Lewis was our long-standing manager, and we are delighted that we have his sister Carole Cessano working with us now, with the faithful Juliette at her side.
From June – December the whales attract visitors to Hermanus, who have not found a place in the world where they can see whales as they can do from the well-developed cliff path, running from the new Harbour to beyond Voelklip, all along the ocean. But Hermanus has wonderful beaches too, that are warmer than those on the Atlantic Ocean of Cape Town, and also has outstanding wine farms in the Hemel-en-Aarde Valley area, including Hamilton Russell Vineyards, Bouchard Finlayson, Creation, Hermanuspietersfontein, and more.
Whale Cottage Franschhoek opened five years ago, and Whale Cottage Plettenberg Bay two and a half years ago. With Whale Cottage Hermanus and Whale Cottage Camps Bay, they make up the unique Whale Cottage Portfolio, welcoming our guests to “a whale of a stay!”. One of its unique features is the Whale Cottage Loyalty Card, which was introduced from the start in 1996, offering our Whale Cottage guests one night free for every 10 nights that they stay at a Whale Cottage, and this has become a very popular incentive to return to our Whale Cottages. Nine years ago we introduced our WhaleTales newsletter, which is sent to our Address Book of 25000 every 6 weeks or so, and is written as a tourism newsletter, described by many as the only newsletter which summarises what is happening in the tourism and hospitality industry. We have never been afraid of being controversial, and of writing the truth. This policy of independent tourism reporting is also the foundation of this WhaleTales Blog.
We thank our Whale Cottage guests, suppliers, colleagues and friends for their loyal support of our guest houses, and of our WhaleTales newsletters and Blog.
Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com