Tag Archives: ‘Der Bachelor’

Cape Town loses its standing as world’s favourite tourist city, overtaken by Durban!

Cape TownFrom number one in the New York Times ‘52 Places to go in 2014‘, Cape Town has fallen right off the list of ‘52 Places to go in 2015‘. In its place, Durban has made 7th on this prestigious list this year!   Cape Town too has lost out to Los Angeles as the home for filming the German reality series ‘Der Bachelor’.

The South African stories for the New York Times  are written by Sarah Khan, an American writer who now lives in Cape Town.  Having become proudly-Cape Town, Khan has written many articles about Cape Town, even though her restaurant recommendations for Cape Town in Travel + Leisure left much to be desired Continue reading →

WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 29 September

WhaleTalesTourism, Food, and Wine news headlines

*   ‘The Bachelor’ Australia is featuring Cape Town (with Table Mountain), the Winelands, and Pilanesberg Game Reserve in the last two episodes of the dating series, in which bachelor Blake Garvey shows the final three dates the beauty of the Cape.  The series has been produced by Channel Ten in Australia, in conjunction with the Australia country office of SA Tourism.  The publicity shot appears to have been taken at Delaire Graff.  Three complete series of ‘Der Bachelor‘ Germany have been shot in Camps Bay in the past three years.

*   A Memorandum of Understanding was signed between Brazil and South Africa last week, to enhance the tourism relationship between the two countries.  Tourism Minister Derek Hanekom visited Sao Paulo to attend the opening of the new SA Tourism office in that city, and to visit the ABAV Travel Tradeshow.  Brazil is the last of the BRICS countries with which South Africa has signed such a Memorandum of Understanding.  Last year tourism from South Africa grew by 8%, and from Brazil close to 6%.

*   South African winemakers are getting younger, writes Wall Street Journal‘s Will Lyons, agreeing with UK wine writer Continue reading →

‘Der Bachelor’ 2014 puts Camps Bay into the German spotlight!

Camps Bay Beach 3 BachelorLast year we saw ‘Der Bachelor‘ on RTL German TV for the first time, and were excited by the fantastic coverage which Cape Town and its surrounds generally and Camps Bay specifically achieved in the show, the contestants all sharing a  house in Camps Bay for the duration of the filming.  Season 4 began flighting last week, and last night I watched episode 2 of the new series. With a promotion offered by SA Tourism to visit Cape Town, as well as by Amarula, and the filming of our beautiful city and beach suburb, the reality TV series should make Cape Town a talking point in Germany for the next few weeks.

Christian Tews is the newest ‘Der Bachelor‘, and is not endowed with such good looks as his predecessors Der Bachelor Christian Tews and RoseJan and Paul had.  His biggest disadvantage is his bald head, and dress sense, or lack of!  He seems very nice, has beautiful blue eyes, and has already developed soft spots for some of the 22 finalists. Continue reading →

German reality show “Der Bachelor” singles out Cape Town as its location!

The third series of ‘Der Bachelor’ commenced last week, and has achieved record viewership of over 4 million viewers on German TV station RTL, excellent news for Cape Town, given that Camps Bay is the location for the reality TV show again.

The new Bachelor Jan Kralitschaka is described in Germany’s leading magazine Bunte as having a charming Colgate smile, a sixpack, and radiant eyes.  He was sent to Cape Town with 20 potential single candidates, to meet his dream wife.  Different tourist spots in the Western Cape and other parts of South Africa are built into the script.  Jan and one of the ladies will be shark cage diving in tonight’s episode!

The ‘Camps Bay Mansion’ villa was rented out after series 2, and was described as being a 1000 square meter, 10 bedroom villa, with a billiard room and wine cellar, and a Romeo & Juliet balcony, which was rented our after the second series of eight programs at € 937 per day last year, with a minimum rental period of seven days.

Given that Cape Town Tourism and Wesgro are doing extremely little to market Cape Town and the Western Cape, respectively, one can be grateful for every opportunity to put Cape Town on the German map!

POSTSCRIPT 16/1: The episode this evening started with a TV commercial for Amarula, one of the two key sponsors of the reality TV series.  A helicopter flip over Cape Town was an exciting start to the episode, and a spa in the Winelands was also included, shot next to the vineyard.  Jan and one of the contestants were flown to Gansbaai for shark cage diving via helicopter, both going into the cage, with a shark swimming close by.  The team were then flown to Johannesburg, to a rehabilitation reserve for orphaned game, to lots of ohs and ahs. A promotion is being run with SA Tourism, offering a week’s holiday in Cape Town, with hotel accommodation included.  A lot of the time on camera showed the contestants holding glasses of wine, promoting our wine industry too.

‘Der Bachelor’, RTL, 22h15 SA time, Wednesday evenings.

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