Tag Archives: great white shark

Cape Town Tourism encourages tourists to swim with sharks! Is National Geographic campaign already a flop?

One wonders what is going on at Cape Town Tourism and its marketing of Cape Town, the little that is done! With shock we saw an advertisement for Cape Town on the National Geographic website, alongside the blogposts which their ‘Digital Nomad’ Andrew Evans had written while he was in Cape Town, inviting tourists to the city to ‘Swim with sharks’.  Not only was this advertisement irresponsible in general, but in extremely poor taste, having been posted just days after champion Camps Bay bodyboarder David Lillienfeld was fatally attacked by a Great White shark at Kogel Bay, in False Bay, on 19 April.  The advertisement was Cape Town branded.

The shark attack caused a huge outcry, in that the Kogel Bay beach does not have sharkspotters (Muizenberg, Fish Hoek, St James, Kalk Bay, and Noordhoek have them), and in that National Geographic was implicated in the shark attack, in that Chris Fisher, a documentary maker for the TV channel, had been filming ‘Shark Men in False Bay’, having received a permit allowing ‘chumming’, luring sharks with a mix of fish and oil, to the boat. The permits issued to the film team were withdrawn immediately after the shark attack, but have since been reissued, on condition that the team’s vessel Ocearch only operates near Gansbaai and in False Bay, and that a maximum of 12 sharks may be tagged, reported iol.co.za.  Reuters quoted contradictory research about the effect of chumming on shark attacks. False Bay has 260 Great White Sharks, according to shark scientist Alison Kock, reported the Cape Times. Shark cage diving, mainly talking place in the Gansbaai area, is also blamed for a greater number of shark attacks. The Western Cape provincial government is to hold a special public hearing about shark research and tourism shortly, reports the Cape Argus.

The visit by blogger and Tweeter Andrew Evans kicked off a multi-prong year-long National Geographic marketing campaign jointly sponsored by Cape Town Tourism and Durban Tourism.  No budget figures for the campaign are available, which includes coverage on National Geographic TV, as well as in the National Geographic magazines in limited countries such as China and India.

Readers of the National Geographic blog were invited to ‘follow our Digital Nomad through South African cities‘, and Andrew spent just over a week in Cape Town, from 16 – 25 April, Tweeting his way around the city (he has just more than 15000 followers on Twitter, not an extraordinary number for his international exposure, and surprisingly only about 2300 Facebook likes). Andrew documented his impressions and experiences in only five blogposts about Cape Town. Four blogspot were very short, and the last one was entitled ‘My Cape Town Favorites’ , containing more information, and sharing information about accommodation, restaurants, and sights he experienced in Cape Town.

The restaurant section intrigued me, and it was disappointing to read where Andrew had eaten: Mama Africa; Kalkys; Bread, Milk and Honey; Lola’s, Eastern Bazaar, Noon Gun, Two Oceans, and the Cape Royale, mediocre restaurants at best. The best of the collection was the Planet Restaurant at the Mount Nelson Hotel, an Eat Out Top 20 Restaurant.  Andrew did not eat at Cape Town’s (and South Africa’s) best restaurant (The Greenhouse) or at the Test Kitchen (best chef).  Just after his visit, Chef Luke Dale-Roberts’ The Test Kitchen restaurant made 74th place on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants! We wrote a comment about this on the blogpost, and Andrew replied, writing that his meal at Planet was a memorable one.  We then asked via a further comment how he chose the restaurants he went to, Cape Town Tourism clearly guiding him about this! To our surprise, the comments and Andrew’s reply have since been deleted, probably at the insistence of Cape Town Tourism!  We note that a correction we offered about the ‘Signature (sic) Hill’ winery Andrew wrote about has been corrected!  Despite a Cape Town Tourism media release announcing that Andrew would also visit Robben island and the three wine routes in Cape Town, these attractions were not included in his visit. But he did go up Table Mountain, play with penguins at Boulder’s Beach, kayaked around Cape Point with Lewis Pugh, and visited the Aquarium, Kirstenbosch, Woodstock, Bo Kaap, District Six, Noordhoek Beach, Camps Bay, the V&A Waterfront, Long Street, Muizenberg, and Kalk Bay.  His experiences were mainly Tweeted with a photograph of each of his tourist destinations.  Although Andrew called for recommendations of places to see and visit in Cape Town, and receiving many suggestions, he did not appear to make time to visit any of the more unusual attractions in the city and in surrounding towns and villages.  Surprising is that Andrew did not reply to any of the travel suggestions he received, Cape Town Tourism Communications Manager Skye Grove responding to the more controversial comments (and clearly deleting those that she did not like!).

Andrew spent a week in Durban in the second half of the joint campaign with Durban Tourism, and now advertisements for Durban strongly brand the city (“Durban: The warmest place to be”) on the National Geographic blog, the advertisement and a banner for Durban running alongside the Cape Town blogposts by Andrew, which does not make marketing sense at all!  While Andrew was in Durban he made a fatal error in a racist Tweet “Black woman visiting from Jo’burg & Muslim woman watch the sunrise & the surfers at #Durban beach”. He also Tweeted about OR Thambo being notorious for theft out of luggage (ouch!) – most incoming international flights are via this airport, so the Tweet is damaging to South African tourism in general, hardly what Cape Town Tourism or Durban Tourism should be paying National Geographic for!

The multi-million Rand National Geographic marketing campaign for Cape Town and Durban has not commenced on a good note. One must question the wisdom of two (competing) cities sharing a marketing campaign (as bad as Cape Town Routes Unlimited marketing ‘Cape Town & Western Cape’ as one brand), and why Andrew’s often naive content was not checked for the many mistakes he has made, reflecting badly on our city, the premier tourism brand of South Africa!  One questions what impact this campaign has had for Cape Town, in a period when Cape Town’s tourism businesses are facing a deadly quiet second half of May, as well as June and July! Cape Town Tourism’s shark swimming advertisement is in poor taste and must be scrapped immediately!

POSTSCRIPT 11/5: The Cape Argus has reported that the public hearing will be held on Tuesday.

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

007 to the rescue of …whales, and more shoots!

Former James Bond actor Pierce Brosnan has boldly appealed to President Obama to help put an end to illegal whaling, reports CBS.  Brosnan paid for and appears in an “Save the Whales Now” advertisement, in which he reminds the President of his promise, whilst a candidate for the White House, that he was going to stop illegal whaling.

The “Save the Whales Now” campaign is a joint effort by the following organisations: Humane Society of the United States, The International Fund for Animal Welfare, The Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Ocean Alliance.   It encourages viewers to call the President personally, by providing a telephone number.  The Brosnan ad can be viewed here.

Halle Berry, Oscar-winning actress, and Oliver Martinez are currently in Cape Town, to shoot “Dark Tide” in Simonstown.  Berry plays the role of a diving instructor who comes face-to-face with sharks on a deserted island in the movie, reports the Sunday Times.   Local marine professionals have been retained by the producers, to provide support, whilst a local team of stunt co-ordinators has also been hired.   Filming has taken place in Simonstown harbour and at Seal Island.   The production company has set up its base at Seaforth Beach in Simonstown.

Commenting on the making of the movie, shark conservationist Alison Kock of Save Our Seas Foundation told the Sunday Times that they decided to not get involved and assist the producers, after they had seen the script, and it appeared to be a “shark attack” movie, a thriller in which the actors fight off a shark attack.  Her society’s mandate is to present the positive side of sharks, especially given shark attacks in False Bay generally, and specifically in Fish Hoek at the beginning of the year, when Lloyd Skinner died from being attacked by a Great White Shark.

A fascinating project is that of an Australian movie “Whale Like Me”,which film-maker Malcolm Wright is making.  Wright does not support the catching of whales by the Japanese, and came up with the idea of a documentary, in which the Japanese and the conservationists opposed to whaling swop roles, a “walk a mile in my shoes” type of movie, reports The Australian.  Wright will be living with a whaling family and join a whale hunt off the coast of Japan, while whalers will live with him in the Cook Islands and will swim with humpback whales in the area.

Wright says of his novel documentary: “The key to the film is reconciliation and the way we see reconciliation is walking a mile in each other’s shoes.  My standpoint is we have to now shift from a moratorium on sustainability grounds to a moratorium on ethical grounds, and at least have an international exchange of ideas and come to a conclusion of some sort”.   Hideki Fuji, a Japanese film-maker working on the project challenges the anti-whaling sentiment, asking how whaling and eating whales is different to “the harvesting of other animals for human consumption”.   Wright worked with Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson, and hopes to get his movie released in cinemas.  Filming is planned to start this month.

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

Big Five to become whale of a Big Seven!

Speaking at the celebration of World Oceans Day and International Year of the Shark in Gansbaai this week, new Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs Buyelwa Sonjica announced that South Africa’s marketing is set to be adapted to move from marketing its Big Five ( lion, leopard, elephant, buffalo and rhino) to the Big Seven, to include the great white sharks and the Southern Right whales, reports the Cape Argus.