Tag Archives: George

WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 3 July

WhaleTalesTourism, Food, and Wine Headlines

*   Tsogo Sun has announced that it is introducing free Wifi with a limit of 250 – 750 MB per day, depending on the room type.

*   Mr Delivery, now named Mr D, will be delivering Pick ‘n Pay’s online shopping to customers via its 48 franchises countrywide. It currently does in excess of 85000 deliveries a month, reports Cape Business News.

*   ‘The Beautiful South’ wine show for South African, Chilean, and Argentinian wines, to be held in London on 11 and 12 September, has already signed up 280 exhibitors.

*   President Obama’s visit to Senegal, South Africa, and Tanzania last week may stimulate tourism by Americans to Africa, speculates Travel Daily News. Continue reading →

So what impact did the World Cup really make on Cape Town and the Cape?

Cape Town Routes Unlimited has released statistics, comparing the tourism performance between June 2009 and 2010.  In general it would appear that tourism facilities fared better in June this year compared to last June, due to the World Cup, which kicked off on 11 June.

 The following statistics were provided in the Cape Town Routes Unlimited “World Cup Impact” report:

1.  The Table Mountain Aerial Cableway received 63861 visitors in June, an increase of 69 %

2.   Boulders Beach in Simonstown had just less than 20 000 visitors from 1-20 June this year, compared to 21 314 for the whole of June 2009

3.   Kirstenbosch received 7 % more visitors in June, at 25 469, compared to last year

4.   The V&A Waterfront received 1,6 million visitors in June, up 7 % compared to last year.

5.   Robben Island doubled its visitor numbers between June this year and last year.

6.   International arrivals at Cape Town International airport increased by 18 % in June relative to a year ago, (and by 24 % for the period 11 June – 16 July, according to Cape Town Tourism’s World Cup Impact report, released yesterday).

7.   Domestic arrivals at Cape Town International airport increased by 10 %, at 261260 in June 

8.   The Cape Town “Lodging Statistics Summary” (where did they get that name from?) seems very wrong, from own experience and discussions with other industry colleagues, given the exceptionally poor May 2010 accommodation bookings.  We publish the information with a warning (the Cape Town Routes Unlimited report does not identify the source of its statistics):

             Occupancy:                 2010                                              2009

             April                             59%                                                 62%

             May                              55%                                                 46%

             June                              68%                                                 41%

9.  The FIFA Fan Fest at the Grand Parade had its best day on 11 June, the Opening Match between Bafana Bafana and Mexico, with 41000 visitors, and had to be closed at that number due to overcrowding. The second busiest day was the Bafana Bafana match against France on 16 June, with 39000 visitors.  The quietest day was 21 June, with just less than 8000 soccer fans.

10.   In June the busiest Fan Walk day was when Holland played Cameroon, with an estimated 72000 walkers between the City centre and the Cape Town Stadium.  The Portugal/Korea DPR match attracted only 25 000 – 30 000 walkers, a day with heavy rain.

11.   Public Viewing set up in provincial towns was highest on 11 June in all such towns, and highest overall in Worcester (8000), followed by George (more than 7000).  Attendance dropped strongly on other days, and night matches were not well supported where public transport had not been organised.

12.   The V&A Waterfront Gateway (one assumes the one at the Clocktower) attracted 23911 visitors in June, up by 8 %, but the value of bookings increased by 55%.   Only 94 bookings were made last month, a disappointing number, given the traffic in the V&A Waterfront in this period.

13.   The Cape Town Tourism International airport office served 6841 visitors, the City branch 1206, the Table Mountain Cableway branch 849, and Kirstenbosch 803 visitors.  No comparable 2009 figures are provided, which is a surprise and disappointment.  (Cape Town Tourism’s World Cup Impact report states that 71 % more international visitors and 15 % more domestic tourists visited a Cape Town Tourism branch during the World Cup period – even though I have never seen information about the origin of the tourist asked) 

14.   Franschhoek claims to have received more than 4000 visitors (no 2009 comparative figures) in its Information office in June, which did not translate into much business as far as accommodation and restaurant bookings are concerned.  Paarl claims to have served 1 961 visitors (no 2009 comparative figures), and Knysna Tourism received 1433 visitors, double the number of last June.   Ceres received 1173 visitors, treble the 2009 figure, but this may have been due to the heavy snowfalls last month.

It is a pity that 2009 figures are not available across the board for the statistics provided, and that the 11 days of the World Cup are not reflected either, as Cape Town and the towns close to it were fuller in July, given the round of 16, quarter-final and semi-final matches played in Cape Town in this period.  Yet it is commendable that statistics were made available at all, no matter how questionable some of them appear to be!

Cape Town Tourism’s World Cup Impact report, presented to the media yesterday, claims that 200000 of the 350000 international visitors that came to South Africa for the World Cup came to Cape Town (even though its earlier pre-World Cup surveys showed that the majority of such soccer fans planned to visit Cape Town!).   One wonders how this estimate was made.  Cape Town Tourism CEO Mariette du Toit-Helmbold said that the World Cup was never about the short term, but about long-term benefits for Cape Town, turning soccer fans into fans of Cape Town.  City of Cape Town Mayco Member of Economic Development and Tourism Felicity Purchase noted that events hosted in winter months are needed to counter the seasonality of Cape Town’s tourism industry.   The 750 journalists that were shown around Cape Town loved the city, describing it as “photogenic”, and falling in love with it.   The Report also addresses accommodation occupancy during the World Cup, but its “research” was so poorly conducted that their misleading results will not be reported here (read our criticism of their intital results, mid-way through the World Cup).

What all the reports lose sight off is the extremely poor May that the tourism and hospitality industry experienced, a vacuum having been created due to the World Cup, which wiped out any gains made between 11 June – 11 July!

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

World Cup puts South Africa into focus, some bad, mostly good!

The World Cup has always been said to have the benefit of showcasing South Africa, and the world’s media are descending on the country to prepare profiles of South Africa.  Some of it is negative, but much so far has been positive, especially in showing off the beauty of Cape Town.

A South Africa-based correspondent for SkyNEWS seems to be in the townships every day, negatively reporting about the poverty of these residents, while the ‘rich’ sector of the country benefits from the World Cup, it is highlighted continuously.

Much more positive reporting is coming from ZDF, Germany’s largest TV station, which is pulling out all the stops to showcase South Africa.  Yesterday, for example, the station did a 24 hour broadcast on its online channel, about our country, a conglomeration of various documentaries the station had produced on previous occasions.  Unfortunately an on-line broadcast is not as powerful as a television broadcast, but it will have attracted a young audience.   ZDF put a lot of advertising muscle behind the 24-hour broadcast, so it created strong awareness amongst ZDF viewers.   The country brand ‘Suedafrika’ is definitely top of mind. 

However, 90 minutes of the on-line broadcast was broadcast on ZDF TV throughout the day, in three sets of 30 minutes each.   The programme started with beautiful shots of Table Mountain, and then of Cape Town filmed from Table Mountain.   It was said that a trip up the mountain by cable car is a must for every visitor.   Then the documentary jumped in contrast to a school in Wuppertal, showing children in a boarding school having to brush their teeth in an irrigation canal, because there are not enough facilities in the hostel for all the children.  Then it moved to showing burning tyres, set alight by taxi drivers protesting against the new BRT bus system to be introduced.   A township resident was interviewed, who positively stated that he would never leave his township : ‘I do not want to change my life for anything’, despite the poor facilities in the township.   Children receiving a swimming lesson in Khayelitsha were filmed, and a sangoma throwing the bones interviewed.   Then the production team interviewed Pieter-Dirk Uys, who initially spoke in German, but switched to English when he spoke about how dangerous it was for him to have mocked the Government when he first started, and melodramatically stated that had he been black, he would have been imprisoned!  (He did not tell the interviewer that he has declared Evita se Perron in Darling soccer-free during the World Cup!).

Then the action moved to Captain Crash, who chases after stolen cars and minibus taxis in his helicopter (I have seen this insert twice already), and then to a Soweto-based Event Manager Tshepiso Mohlala, who is involved in the organisation of the World Cup Concert on 10 June.   A lot of airtime was given to a German wedding co-ordinator from Wedding Concepts, who was organising a wedding at Allee Bleue outside Franschhoek.

Capetonian and ex-Miss South Jo-Ann Strauss features regularly in a ZDF TV advert for the World Cup Concert, from which Strauss and revered ZDF talk-show host Thomas Gottschalk will be presenting for ZDF.  She speaks near-perfect German, her partner being from Munich, saying: ‘Suedafrika begruesst die Fussballwelt’ (South Africa welcomes the football nations).

Other programmes, like ‘Traumstaedte’ (Dream Cities), start off positively, with beautiful views of Camps Bay beach, the Promenade, the Bay Hotel, the Waterfront, but soon move to the townships, and interviews are conducted with extremely negative residents, talking about the crime and drug situation in the townships.   The ZDF reporters talk about Cape Town’s ‘Hell and Paradise’ not the lasting impression we would like to create marketing-wise amongst international viewers.

‘Traumflug durch Afrika: Von Kapstadt nach Kenia’ (Dream flight through Africa: from Cape Town to Kenya) was far more positive, documenting a Eurocopter pilot flying over beautiful Cape Town (Table Mountain and Cape Point), flying 3 meters above the sea, the Garden Route to George and Knysna for some golf and oysters at the Dry Dock restaurant, to the Addo Park for a safari, to St Francis, Coffee Bay, the Hole in the Wall, and then off to Lesotho, reaching his end destination of Kenya. 

In a cooking program with some of Germany’s top chefs, the cooking stars all wore German soccer jerseys, to show their pride in and support for the German team, indirectly attracting attention to the World Cup.

Given that Cape Town Tourism has appointed PR companies in Germany and the U K, and in other European countries, we trust that the city’s tourism body will help influence the content of documentaries of our city, and that they show the tourist side of Cape Town, without having to focus so much on the townships.

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

World Cup Service Excellence drive can only be Mickey Mouse!

The Department of Tourism has announced a last minute service excellence campaign “Tourism Service Excellence Initiative” (TSEI) for all front-line staff dealing with soccer fans during the World Cup, less than one month prior to the start of this world sport event.   While its intentions are extremely noble, and it will be offered for free, a two-hour session will hardly make any difference to generally poor service attitudes in Cape Town and South Africa.

The Department of Tourism has contracted The Disney Institute from Orlando to conduct a number of free two-hour seminars around the country, the Cape Town ones taking place next Thursday (at His People Center in Goodwood) and Friday (at the Cape Town International Convention Centre), at 10h00 and 14h00 on each of these days.  The same presentations will be held in Stellenbosch on 15 May, in George on 17 May, and in Knysna on 18 May.

The Disney Institute is a highly regarded “university of service excellence”, and a company like Pick ‘n Pay has regularly sent its managers to Orlando to improve its stores’ customer care and service excellence.   But it is impossible to change a service mentality in 2 hours!

The Western Cape province sent the invitation to attend the seminars in Cape Town as a Press Release, and it states that one can call to make a booking (a friendly and reasonably efficient process requiring ID numbers of staff, and more) or go the TSEI website www.tsei.co.za.    Dr Laurine Platzky, the “2010 FIFA World Cup Coordinator from Provincial Government Western Cape”, describes the seminars as “energetic” and “inspiring”, their aim being to “give all football guests an unforgettable experience in the Mother City and the Province”.

The TSEI document has the logos of the Department of Tourism, TSEI and the Disney Institute, as well as of FEDHASA, at the bottom of the document. FEDHASA’s has a web address linked to it (no other web addresses are supplied), but it is not FEDHASA’s web address – it is the web address of FEDHASA CEO Brett Dungan’s private Rooms4U booking portal, which has been criticised on this blog previously!

The TSEI document states that customer service should be improved “in anticipation of the millions of guests to the games” (our underlining).   One wonders where this statistic comes from – 3 million tickets are meant to have been sold, but this does not mean 3 million ticket holders, given that tourism consultancy Grant Thornton has estimated that each visitor will watch 5 matches on average, reducing the number of ticketholders to 600 000 on average!   Also, one talks about “games” for the Olympics, but for the World Cup they are called “matches”!   In a “mastery” of copywriting, it claims that The Department of Tourism had in 2008 already “crafted” (did they mean drafted?) the Tourism Service Excellence Strategy, to “take Service Excellence in the Tourism Service Value Chain to greater heights”. 

It then explains why service levels must be taken to greater heights, in that service excellence in the past has been hampered by (wait for it…….) “the negative impact of apartheid (!), a largely autocratic management style (!), the lack of an established culture of customer service, insufficient training, systemic educational concerns, the poor image of the service industry by most, and the harsh economic realities of many workers who remain focused on survival rather than service” (our exclamation marks).  Phew!  

Internationally, we rank in the middle, at 62nd of 124 countries, on competitiveness, in the 2007(!) World Tourism Council Competitiveness Report.   The Department says that the level of service delivery ranges from good to very poor in our country.   That is why it has appointed The Disney Institute to conduct Service Excellence Seminars, “which are designed and focused in creating a culture of service excellence”.  Come on – can a 2-hour seminar create a culture of Service Excellence, no matter if it is presented by The Disney Institute?! 

Boldly the document continues about the objectives of the Service Excellence Initiative, all defined as being for “2010 and beyond”:

1.  “Championing service transformation

2.   Creating a customer service orientated SA

3.   Crafting a ‘solution-minded’ customer service culture in SA

4.   Providing human behaviour solution to SA

5.   Ensuring SA delivers world-class customer service

6.   Touch the entire service economy so that 2010 leaves a legacy”.

While it is clear that not all points are meant to be addressed by the seminars, the last one is – once again, how can they think that they can achieve this in two hours?!

The document states who should attend, and it lists immigration and customs officials, the police, tourism officials, “local government”, as well as private sector front-line staff in tourism and travel, hospitality, petrol stations, transport and banking.  Each participant is to receive a certificate and a Service Guideline Card, for which an extra half an hour has been allowed.

The best is kept for last – the value that a company’s staff will gain from attendance at the seminars:

“*   Engage employees to be personally involved in creating and delivering quality customer service

 *   Explore the significance of performance accountability, ensuring an equal weight value between business results and employee behaviors (sic) that enhances a positive work culture (straight from the Disney Institute literature no doubt)

 *   Learn the significance of creating and sustaining a corporate culture by design rather than default (?)

 *   Introduce the concept of “Common Purpose” as the organization’s chief global service driver” (we are tiny local non-global tourism related businesses in the main!)

The final best is the “dynamic” pay-off line that the copywriter ends off with : “Be Brilliant – Tourism Service Excellence Initiative” !!!!!!!!!! 

If the Department of Tourism’s Tourism Service Excellence Initiative document is anything to go by, its Service Excellence Workshops will be Mickey Mouse!  I cannot wait to attend, to experience this magical 2-hour transformation in Service Excellence!

POSTSCRIPT:  After writing this post, I found an article written earlier this week by Natalia Thomson of S A Tourism Update about the same topic.  She writes that the Disney Institute contract is worth R 9,5 million, and that 250 000 persons will be put through the workshops around the country.   Read her cynical and critical article here.

Read our follow-up article about the presentation here.

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