Tag Archives: Ghana

WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 12 May

WhaleTalesTourism, Food, and Wine news headlines

*   Tourists do not want to ‘face administrative hurdles‘ in their visa application process when travelling in Africa, said Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, Chairman of the African Union Commission, at Indaba at the weekend.  Making visa applications easier, liberalising air routes, and acting against animal poaching could increase tourism to Africa, she added.  Joint visas to travel within Africa are being considered.  The African Union is working on making Africa the preferred travel destination in fifty years from now!   Another goal is to motivate Africans to travel within Africa.

*   Indaba 2014, which closed its exhibition doors today,  attracted significantly fewer buyers than in previous years, and was criticised for having become ‘stale’, and for not having re-invented itself as was promised last year by SA Tourism’s Marketing head Jan Hutton.  While larger than the recent World Travel Market Africa exhibition held in Cape Town, it disappointed attendees, many especially smaller tourism players not planning to return next year.  The speed networking sessions were a shambles on Saturday and Sunday, with many buyers not present. Costs of catering were said to be prohibitive.

*   The Great Wine Capitals Best of Wine Tourism Awards is open to entries for the 2015 Best of Wine Tourism Awards, in the Continue reading →

WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 31 January

WhaleTalesTourism, Food, and Wine news headlines

*   The African Nations Championship 2014 will come to an end at the Cape Town Stadium tomorrow, with a closing ceremony, followed by the third and fourth place play-off, and the Final thereafter.   The Closing Ceremony is themed ‘Celebrating Africa’s Home Champions’, explained City of Cape Town Councillor for Tourism, Events, and Marketing Grant Pascoe to The New Age.   Ghana plays Libya in the Final, while Nigeria and Zimbabwe will battle it out for places three and four.

*  American air travellers would ideally like a passage that allows free baggage, confirmed seats, and security fast passes.  They do not want to pay for baggage.  They are however prepared to pay for overhead space for hand luggage, for their luggage to come out first at Baggage Claim, to have comfortable seats, to have extra legroom, complimentary meals, and to not have a reclining seat in front of them!

*  South Africa ranks 29th out of 140 countries on the World Economic Forum Travel & Tourism Index, and third in Africa (after Seychelles and Mauritius) on this Index.

*   Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, with their family, are said to live in Johannesburg for a few months, while Pitt works on a  movie Continue reading →

WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 20 September

WhaleTalesTourism, Food, and Wine news headlines

*  Premium South African wines are increasingly being  exported to other African countries, Nigeria in particular, as well as to Ghana, Angola, Tanzania, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

*   American travelers are likely to rate service satisfaction highest, and the Japanese tourists the lowest, with French, German, Italian, Spanish and British tourists falling in between these satisfaction rating spectrums.  This finding comes from a multicountry service satisfaction study conducted amongst a sample of 200000 travelers.

*   We have it all wrong – the most popular travel time for the UK and German market is August, tourists taking about 10 days off, and traveling to the Balearic islands, Turkey, or Greece in Europe, and Mexico on long haul trips, a TUI study of its bookings for 2013 has found.

*   ACSA is planning to introduce a service whereby one can buy duty-free goods on Continue reading →

WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 13 September

WhaleTalesTourism, Food, and Wine news headlines

*   BA is seeing increased business on its Africa routes and has already announced that it is putting ts A380 onto the Johannesburg route from February 2014.  The airline also is increasing its flights to Ghana, Uganda, Liberia, and Serria Leone,  whilst cutting those to Lusaka.

*   Increasing power and staff costs are major threats to the local wine industry, a study by PricewatershouseCoopers has revealed.

*   The Captain DoRegos take-away franchise is to be expanded into the rest of South Africa, and even into Africa, the Spur Corporation has announced.

*  Hein Koegelenberg has written an informative blogpost about how to protect Continue reading →