Despite Cape Town’s year as World Design Capital 2014 having come to an end, its design legacy lives on, not only with design projects created for last year’s event, but with future design projects too.
Cape Town Tourism CEO Enver Duminy punts the legacy of World Design Capital 2014 (both are funded by the City Continue reading →
Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines
* Esteemed British wine writer Jancis Robinson is in the Winelands this week, addressing a workshop and tasting our local wines. Micheal Fridjhon comments about her focus: ‘Robinson focuses on whatever is of interest to her readers. This means that the bulk of her notes and comments relate to European — in fact mainly French — wine. Once outside the so-called Old World she devotes her energies to the US, New Zealand and Australia. This leaves little column space for regular assessments of Argentina, Chile, SA, Central Europe and the dozens of other wine-producing regions of the world‘.
* Vanguard Drive in Cape Town has officially been renamed Jakes Gerwel Drive, after the late friend of the late Nelson Mandela, a Director-General in the Presidency, Rector and Vice-Chancellor at the University of the Western Cape, and Chancellor of Rhodes University. The Mandela Rhodes Foundation nominated the road-name change.
* First Thursdays is launching Museum Night in Cape Town on 26 February, in conjunction with Iziko Museums of South Africa. Continue reading →
Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines‘
* The Western Cape government has committed R 2,4 million to ‘preserving the Western Cape’s culture and heritage and therefore is committed to providing continued support for them’, MEC Nomafrench Mbombo has said, supporting the Cape Minstrels and Malay and Christmas choirs, and their Christmas Choir Bands March on 24 December, The Nagtroupe March on New Years Eve, and the Tweede Nuwejaar Minstrel March. The community will organise its own Cape Annual Minstrel Carnival next year, after the City of Cape Town’s interference in the past led to problems and poor publicity for the City.
* Australia has been using its unique food and wine bounty to market tourism via the ‘Restaurant Australia‘ campaign to the country. Last week it hosted some of the most important food and wine VIPs to its ‘Invite the World to Dinner‘ event in Hobart. Different creative dishes were served in different artistic venues. The organisers claim to have reached 400 million viewers through the event.
* First Thursdays is heading for Woodstock, and ‘Thursday Late‘ will take place in the suburb on Thursday 27 Continue reading →
Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines
* The influential Huffington Post has published a fantastic article about Cape Town, entitled ‘15 Reasons Cape Town should be No. 1 on your travel agenda’, and has already achieved 749 Facebook likes, 211 Facebook shares, and 473 Tweets in the past 24 hours. The list of reasons includes its location; ‘some of the most picturesque beach communities you’ll ever see’, featuring a photograph of Clifton; beachfront bars, showing a photograph of the view onto Camps Bay beach from the now closed-down St Yves; 3000 penguins at Boulders Beach; the Sea Point swimming pool; the Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden; the V&A Waterfront ‘tourist trap‘ but meaning it in a positive way; ‘the weather is almost too perfect’, with a photograph of the Twelve Apostles with a heavy South-Easter cloud!; Long Street not being as over-crowded or over-priced as Bourbon Street; the Royale Eatery, well-known for its burgers and thick milkshakes; colourful Bo-Kaap; the Neighbourgoods Market; ‘breathtaking universities‘; and braai’s, at Mzoli’s in Gugulethu in particular. The Stellenbosch Winelands and shark cage diving in Gansbaai are also recommended.
* TripAdvisor has found that user searches for South Africa are increasingly terms such as ‘museums‘, ‘luxury’, and ‘wifi’, while ‘safety’, wildlife, and ‘animals’ are less often searched than before.
* The 2014 World Cup, due to kick-off in Brazil on 12 June, could be headed for chaos if the threatened strike by staff of the LATAM airline group servicing most of South America is not dealt with before then. It is estimated that 300 international and 750 regional flights could be affected if the strike takes place.
* Century City is to complete a new Conference Centre by the end of next year. The CCCC will have 20 venues which Continue reading →