Tag Archives: IATA

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

WhaleTalesTourism, Food, and Wine news headlines

*   The International Air Transport Association (IATA) is encouraging its members to use IT to improve the customer experience, saying that airlines ‘fly people and cargo, not planes‘. Consistency of customer experience is not yet satisfactory for airlines, with little differentiation. Customers would like to use IT to check in online, tag luggage themselves, board themselves, and collect bags themselves, an IATA survey found last year.  IATA’s goal is that 80% of passengers have a ‘self-service suite based on industry standards‘ available to them by 2020.

*   PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) is not known as a Tourism consultancy, so its prediction about our country’s tourism future is a surprise.  Its report presents growth of 4% in international tourists 2013, far lower than the 10% growth in 2012.  Growth is said to be solid and good, but ‘not fantastic growth‘.  Almost three quarters of international visitors to our country are from Africa, the report confirms.  Nigeria would become the leading source market for our country, the PwC study predicts.  The Guest House category is the fastest growing in respect of room availability.  South Africa’s strength is that it attracts leisure as well as business travelers.

*   France must be feeling the tourism pinch, having announced plans to become more welcoming to tourists, English speaking ones in particular.   The country hopes to increase tourist numbers to 100 million, Continue reading →

WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 6 June

WhaleTalesTourism, Food, and Wine news headlines

*  Michelin star Chef Heston Blumenthal’s The Perfectionists Café has opened at the new Heathrow Terminal 2, serving burgers, fish and chips, and pizzas prepared in the first ever wood-burning oven in an airport, as well as molecular liquid nitrogen ice cream.

*   American travellers are booking last-minute, something that became a habit in 2008 during the economic crisis, but has remained and is now a booking trend, despite the recession being something of the past.

*   Tourists often are better informed about the tourism attractions and highlights of a city than are the local residents of the city, given their ability to use technology to garner information about and make bookings for the destination that they are visiting.  Nick Hall, Head of the Digital Tourism Think Tank, says: ‘So, what we have witnessed so far will accelerate. We can expect far more change, far faster. In this light the rise of mobile technologies is poised to change the industry as much as it has already. Visitors will be innately digital. They will be hyper-informed and seamlessly connected throughout their travel. The challenge this poses to existing tourist businesses is immense, as is the opportunity it holds out‘.  While technology is important, tourists still want the ‘reality of the experience, not the virtual reality’.

*   Three Ships Premium Select 5 Year Old won gold at the 2014 International Spirits Challenge in London.  The whisky is blended Continue reading →

WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 27 May

WhaleTalesTourism, Food, and Wine news headlines

*  The Tourism Business Council of South Africa has welcomed the appointment of new Minister of Tourism Derek Hanekom, and has thanked the former Tourism Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk for his contribution to growing the Tourism industry in his ten year tenure.  Minister Hanekom previously served as Minister of Agriculture and Land Affairs, and most recently as Minister of Science and Technology. (received via media release from the Tourism Business Council of South Africa)

*   South Africa is against an Africa Tourism Tax, the Ministry of Tourism has stated, deeming it to be an ‘unworkable plan’. Taxes are country-specific and cannot be levied across the continent, the department said.  Last week the African Union called for a tourism levy on flights and accommodation, which has also been opposed by the United Nations World Tourism Organisation.  IATA has added its voice, saying that the proposed taxes would make travel within Africa even more expensive.

*   SA Tourism has admitted that the number of visitors to Indaba earlier this month had declined Continue reading →

Whale Tales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 7 May

WhaleTalesTourism, Food, and Wine news headlines

*   The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has seen only a minimal improvement in the growth in revenue passenger kilometers of 5,6% in the first quarter of this year, compared to 5,2 % for the same quarter in 2013.   Global passenger growth in March 2014 was half that in February.  Most regions showed minimal growth in March compared to February, with the exception of the Middle East, which had a 10% passenger growth and Latin America a 4,7% passenger growth in March relative to February.  Africa was the only region with an outright passenger decline (2,6%), and South Africa’s passenger decline is said to be to blame due to poor economic conditions in our country.

*   TripAdvisor is negotiating to buy lafourchette, an European restaurant booking platform representing 12000 restaurants in France, Switzerland, and Spain.  At the World Travel Market Africa Conference held in Cape Town last week the audience was told that TripAdvisor would strongly focus on restaurants, this purchase being a reflection of the planned restaurant drive.

*   De Grendel Merlot 2011 has won a Gold and its Shiraz 2012 a Silver Award at the SAKURA Awards held in Tokyo.  Entries were received from 33 countries, and 1900 wines were evaluated on a 100 point scoring system. Continue reading →