One of the last pats on the back which former Cape Town Tourism CEO Mariette du Toit-Helmbold and PR and Communications Manager Skye Grove gave themselves before leaving the tourism organisation at the end of July was the coverage by the New York Times of the international travel bloggers’ week-long visit to Cape Town a year ago, proudly reTweeting the article.  It appears that they did not read the (long) content of the article, it delicately questioning the ethics of travel blogging by travel bloggers in general, and by those bloggers who visited Cape Town.

We were very critical of the attention which Cape Town Tourism paid its visiting bloggers in July last year, which was preceded by a #LoveCapeTown campaign on Twitter, Capetonians being asked to recommend interesting places for the four bloggers to visit during their week-long stay.  However, the campaign was deceptive, in that the itinerary Continue reading →