Tag Archives: Durban Tourism

WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 4 September

imageTourism, Food, and Wine news headlines

*   Our economy is struggling, business confidence having fallen to its lowest level in 16 years. The South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry Business Confidence Index fell from 88 in July to 84 in August! This scenario may cost the country’s workers 60000 jobs.

*   Given that the 2022 Commonwealth Games will be held in Durban, Continue reading →

Threatened ‘jealous’ Durban attacks Cape Town about tourism ‘ambush marketing’ at Indaba 2014!

Wesgro PosterDurban and Cape Town have had a gentle rivalry when it comes to attracting tourists, which has never been overtly competitive and has been largely collegial, with a joint campaign on National Geographic to market the two cities, to save marketing monies. Now the relationship appears to have reached rock-bottom, with an angry Durban Tourism attack on Cape Town for its alleged ‘ambush marketing‘ of Indaba 2014, the tourism expo held in Durban, which drew to a close on Monday.

In the past other South African cities, but Durban in particular, have been annoyed that Cape Town attracts the bulk of international tourists, and that this is reflected by SA Tourism, in that it proudly features Table Mountain in much of its tourism communication, being a national icon for our country.  SA Tourism and Durban were irked that World Travel Market Africa was held in Cape Town a mere week before the start of Indaba, funded in part by the City of Cape Town, and attracting a fair number of exhibitors and visitors, and receiving praise for the event.  SA Tourism made a point of confirming that it would only support Indaba, there not being enough capacity for two tourism trade shows in our country, in its opinion.

Philip Sithole, head of Durban Tourism, appears to be paranoid about Cape Town, complaining to Southern African Tourism Continue reading →

World Travel Market Africa: Day 2 very disappointing and unprofessional, focus on Mobile Marketing!

WTM Africa Banner Whale Cottage PortfolioI was so impressed with the talks in the Event programme of World Travel Market Africa on Friday that I returned yesterday to the Cape Town International Convention Centre to listen to some more.  It was a much more disappointing and unprofessional experience than on Friday.

It was a shame that the afternoon session was very quiet for all at the exhibition,  having to compete with the Stormers playing Highlanders. It did make finding parking outside the Convention Centre easy though.  In between two talks I went into the Media Centre, and was horrified at how rude the security person was, questioning my presence there, after I had used it the day before as well without question, annoying too as I had blogged about the first day yesterday!  It is disappointing that the quality of the food at the Convention Centre, which had improved greatly after the arrival of Chef Warwick Thomas almost a year ago, was uninspiring in the Media Centre, with some pieces of feta, lots of olives, cherry tomatoes, green leaves, and cucumber slices (the day before they came with mini pita bread), baby potatoes and slices of roast beef with stir fry vegetables (the day before much better rice and tender chicken breasts), and fruit and a mini milktart, which leaked all its content the minute one used the spoon (compared to the excellent fruit tarts and WTM Africa desserts Whale Cottage Portfoliochocolate mousse served the day before).   At 15h00 the content of the small bar fridge, consisting of cold drinks and water, had been cleared out, and they were not refilling it for the next three hours until closing time, because the budget limit for drinks had been reached!  The day before a Convention Centre staff member announced that no more drinks could be had by the writers using the Centre, despite the fridge still being three quarters full!  This all happened despite Natalia Thomson, the PR consultant for the exhibition being in the Media Centre, but she did nothing about the drinks shortage, despite the feedback to her. Continue reading →

World Travel Market Africa 2014: Day 1 huge vote of confidence in Cape Town’s tourism industry!

WTM AfricaI returned to my guest house all charged up after a full day spent at the Cape Town International Convention Centre yesterday, to attend World Travel Market (WTM) Africa, the first time ever that a travel and tourism exhibition of such a stature has been held in Cape Town.

World Travel Market has been held in London for years, and is the second largest travel and tourism exhibition in the world, after ITB in Berlin, and larger than Indaba, which is held in Durban.  At the press conference yesterday afternoon it was said that Reed Exhibitions must have had tremendous confidence in Africa generally and in Cape Town specifically,  to have brought the exhibition to our city, partnering with Thebe in hosting it.  One was surprised at the many stands that had been sold, not only to Cape Town and Western Cape tourism players, but also to national brands (including Durban Tourism, which was interesting, especially as it was not manned on Saturday!) as well as a host of international brands such as Lufthansa, Singapore, Berlin Tourismus & Kongress GmbH, Dubai, Malaysia Tourism Promotion Board, Turkey, Reunion Island, Seychelles, ZambiaWTM Africa Turkey Whale Cottage Portfolio Tourism Board, Namibia WTM Africa WhaleCrier Whale Cottage PortfolioTourism Board and Airports Company, Mozambique, and many more brands, there being about 150 stands in total.  Even the Whale Crier from Hermanus paid a visit!

The communication with WTM Africa had been efficient, attendees being invited to register in advance, so that one could attend for free, which must have led to the good attendance yesterday.  While the service at the registration desk could have been friendlier, it was efficient in general.  Other than visiting many of the exhibitors, and bumping into numerous tourism players on the floor, an important benefit was the interesting programme  of talks over the two days of the exhibition.   By the time I could get to the exhibition, at about 11h15, the talk on Mobile Apps was fully ‘occupied‘ with 100 attendees,  as one of the WTM Africa staff said, which meant that we were not let inside initially, for ‘health and safety reasons‘!  After calling for a senior Continue reading →