Tag Archives: Destinate

WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 9 – 11 August

WhaleTalesTourism, Food, and Wine news headlines

*  Adderley Street will undergo construction work for the MyCiTi Bus this month, the City of Cape Town warns.

*   Clever is the new campaign to collect and used soap from hotels, to give to underprivileged families.  One hopes that the campaign will spread to South Africa too.

*   Arniston Bay has launched its first two infused wines:  Arniston Bay Graviola and Passion Fruit Infusion, and Arniston Bay Mint Aloe and Lemongrass Infusion.  The new wines have a screwcap, are low in alchohol at 5,5%, and are lightly spritzed.  Packaging is 100% recyclable.  They cost around R44. (via media release from Hazell PR and Wine Consultants)

*   Wine bloggers in the USA and Canada have a strong influence on wine buying in Continue reading →

New Cape Town Tourism CEO Enver Duminy’s first funding fiasco, as City of Cape Town reneges on agreement!

Cape Town Tourism

What a shock it was to read last night that the City of Cape Town’s Directorate of Tourism, Events, and Marketing (T.E.A.M.), under the leadership of Executive Director Anton Groenewald and which reports to Councillor Grant Pascoe, Mayoral Committee Member for Tourism, Events and Marketing, the majority funder of Cape Town Tourism, has reneged on its three year funding contract which was due to have commenced just over a month ago on 1 July.

Last year the City of Cape Town dealt Cape Town Tourism a major blow when it removed its destination marketing role and substantially (by about 20%) cut its budget to R36 million, leaving the tourism body with the job of mainly handling tourism information services. We wrote at the time that this heavy-handed move by the City is contrary to the Constitution of Cape Town Tourism, and the decision was not put forward to its members for ratification at its AGM in October!

Southern African Tourism Update reported last night that the City has only signed for Continue reading →

Cape Town Tourism ‘destinated’ to start afresh in marketing Cape Town!

mariettedth_1369339943_39Last week two senior members of staff left the services of Cape Town Tourism, being its CEO Mariette du Toit-Helmbold, and its PR and Communications Manager Skye Grove.  A new era lies ahead for the tourism body, which can hopefully get on with the focused marketing of Cape Town and its tourism industry again.

Given how badly Cape Town has been marketed as a tourism destination in the past few years, it is a fantastic opportunity for new CEO Enver Duminy to show what he can do to deal with the city’s terrible problem of Seasonality with barely any business in the winter months, which is unique to Cape Town, compared to South Africa’s other major cities.  Every year Mrs Helmbold has paid lip service to the problem, and promised to tackle the problem, but she never did, and business has become progressively worse every winter.

Shocking was the blatant exploitation in the past ten days by Mrs Helmbold to actively market the services of her new destination marketing consultancy whilst still in the employ of Cape Town Tourism.  She announced that she would establish a consultancy in April after her resignation from Cape Town Tourism became public in February.  As if Tweets on her own Twitter account were not enough to market the new consultancy whilst still working for Cape Town Tourism,  Cape Town Continue reading →