Tag Archives: Langa

WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 13/14 September

WhaleTalesTourism, Food, and Wine news headlines 

*   Cape Town Film Studios is likely to expand to meet demand for its facilities for the increasing use of Cape Town as a location for movies and TV commercials.  It is working at full capacity, and has had to reject 32 productions in the past year due to capacity restraints.    Two new studios are planned to be ready by next year, and to double its capacity by 2017.   Not only the location beauty, but also the wardrobe and set building services offered in Cape Town are highly regarded.  The Western Cape film industry was worth R 5 billion, and more than 7000 film permits were requested in the past year.

*   Tough new packaging and marketing guidelines protecting children under 18 years are being considered by the Department of Health for marketing ‘unhealthy foodstuffs to children‘, including those which are high in sugar, fat, and salt, and ‘nutrient poor food and/or non-alcoholic beverage‘.  Advertising, promotions, and TV sponsorships for unhealthy foodstuffs aimed at children will be prohibited, as will be the use of cartoon characters, celebrities, puppets, and computer animation in their marketing of foodstuffs to children.

*   The 40th Nederburg Auction yesterday generated R7 million is sales. The Nederburg Auction website has not yet been updated to reflect this result. (seen via Twitter)

*   Department of Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba announced on Friday (less than 3 weeks prior to implementation) that a task Continue reading →

WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 21 – 23 February

WhaleTalesTourism, Food, and Wine news headlines

*   Koos Bekker, Naspers CEO and founder of M-Net/Multichoice, is to step down on 31 March, the company which also owns M-Web and has internet interests in China has announced.  He and his wife own the magnificent Babylonstoren outside Franschhoek.
*   Qantas has announced the cancellation of its codeshare agreement with SAA, which will be effective as of July.   The move appears to be due to pressure from the Australian government to not collaborate with competitors.
*   President Jacob Zuma has declared 7 May, the date of the General Election, as a public holiday.
*   Cape Town International has been announced as Best Airport in Africa for the fourth year. Western Cape Tourism Minister Alan Winde’s office has announced.   The other Top 5 African airports are Durban, Mauritius, Cairo, and OR Thambo.  Upington airport is top airport in the category of 2 million and fewer passengers.

 

*    The City of Cape Town clearly has too much money to waste, running a footbridge naming Continue reading →

‘Safe House’ shot in picture perfect Cape Town, favourite film city of Ryan Reynolds!

The movie ‘Safe House’, starring Denzil Washington and Ryan Reynolds, which was released internationally yesterday, does Cape Town proud, with most of the scenes in the two-hour film shot in the city over a five month period last year.  Reynolds has expressed his love for the city in interviews, an excellent ambassador for Cape Town.

The Weekend Argus reports that Rio de Janeiro was the preferred location for the movie, the script calling for a ‘safe house’ to be as far away as possible from the USA.  Cape Town was chosen above Rio de Janeiro because it ‘had more infrastructure than Rio’, said Reynolds in an interview.

During their time in the city, Reynolds and Washington climbed Lion’s Head, visited the Garden Route, lived in the One&Only Cape Town, and were spotted in numerous local restaurants. Reynolds was blown away by the beauty of Cape Town, and his favourite memory of the city was eating at Mzoli’s.  The trailer and the movie open with a beautiful shot of Lion’s Head in the foreground, across Table Bay, and onto the Paarl mountains covered in southeaster clouds, to audience applause!  Local actress Lynita Crofford stars very briefly in the movie.

The Cape Argus has reported that Reynolds said that Cape Town ‘is my favourite city I’ve shot in’, a fantastic accolade.  He shared that he did not have much time to see the tourist side of the city, but when his family came to visit, it ‘forced me to go see everything as quickly as I could.  I’ve obviously seen all the local sites’. He added that he prefers Cape Town to Johannesburg, where he filmed as well, ‘just because I’m big on the ocean and the hiking and the mountains’.

The movie is dominated by lots of action, a CIA espionage ‘skop-skiet-en-donder’ movie, with more indoor shots than outdoors, thereby limiting the opportunity to show off the beauty of Cape Town. But brand ‘Cape Town’ was pertinently mentioned five times.  An incredible unbelievable car chase was filmed on the Western Boulevard (to the consternation of Capetonians last year, when this road was regularly closed for filming) and at the bottom end of Adderley Street, near the station.  An unidentifiable restaurant (possibly at Lagoon Beach) briefly reflects the fantastic backdrop of Table Mountain to Table Bay; some action takes place at the beautiful-looking Cape Town Stadium, with a night-time soccer match replicated and lots of noisy vuvuzela blowing – at this point Reynolds speaks very acceptable Afrikaans when talking to the local police;  some action takes place on De Waal Drive, an opportunity to show more of the view over Table Bay; a lot of exterior action takes place near the provincial building on Wale Street, another road that was closed on many days for filming; Langa is the location for more action; The ‘Standard Hotel’ in Parow is featured; a ‘safe house’, being a farmhouse on a dusty farm road near Malmesbury, shows off the beauty of the Swartland; wine is drunk, and something about Pinotage is mumbled by Washington as the movie closes, but is not understandable. The building in which a lot of filming was done on Kloof Street, near the Mount Nelson Hotel, is not recognisable in the movie.

Capetonians would be disappointed to see the movie, as there is not much recognisable about Cape Town. As a movie, there is a lot of shooting and some vuvuzela blowing, very noisy due to the surround-sound. For the ladies, Reynolds only looks gorgeous in the close to the movie.  It’s not a movie one would necessarily recommend others to see, and I went to see it yesterday purely to see how the film reflects Cape Town. The movie filming will have been a welcome boost to the city’s financial coffers, benefiting the accommodation, restaurant, and film industries directly.

POSTSCRIPT 14/2: The Cape Times reported yesterday that the movie ‘Chronicle’, which was shot in Cape Town in its entirety and made to resemble Seattle, will be released this week.  The filming of ‘Chronicle’ and ‘Safe House’ jointly is estimated to have generated ‘R350 million in spend to local hotels, restaurants, shops, catering services and transport’, and added to this is the spend on production companies and the Cape Town Film Studios.  Mayoral Committee member for Tourism, Events and Marketing Grant Pascoe said ‘both films showcase the city not only as a premier film location, but as a destination of choice for potential visitors’, thereby indicating that he hasn’t seen either of these two movies!

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

Build more hotels, open more restaurants in Cape Town: TripAdvisor tourism tsunami on its way!

Cape Town has made it to the top of the TripAdvisor 2011 Travelers’ Choice Destinations Awards, beating world cities and destinations Sydney, Machu Picchu, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, New York City, Rome, London, Barcelona and Hong Kong.  It is a fantastic accolade for our wonderful city, and could lead to millions of visitors to Cape Town, if the TripAdvisor numbers are to be believed!

“With beautiful scenery, great wine and gorgeous weather, it’s easy to see why Cape Town, which also played host to last year’s World Cup, has topped this year’s list” said Emma Boyle, TripAdvisor spokesperson.

I am extremely sceptical of TripAdvisor, a love-hate site for hospitality establishments, that allows users to rate hotels and restaurants around the world.  Boldly they claim to have “over 45 million trusted travel reviews and opinions”, which Cape Town Tourism promptly misinterpreted on its blog as being the number of voters for Cape Town.

 

While I am delighted at the visibility for Cape Town as a result of the top ranking of our Mother City, the market researcher in me was disappointed in TripAdvisor’s announcement not answering two key questions:

*   who participated and voted for the top destinations?

*   what methodology was used, including sample size, vote methodology, time period of vote, etc, or was it purely based on the number of Google-type searches recorded on the TripAdvisor site? 

A vague sentence in the TripAdvisor announcement stated: “honor top travel spots in the world based on millions of real and unbiased opinions from TripAdvisor travelers.  Award winners were determined based on a combination of travelers’ favourite places and overall destination popularity”.  “Millions of TripAdvisor travelers around the globe have helped identify the world’s top travel spots,” said Barbara Messing, chief marketing officer for TripAdvisor. “The Travelers’ Choice Destinations awards not only recognize some of the most beloved travel destinations worldwide, but serve as inspiration for millions of travelers looking to plan their next trip.”

As a registered TripAdvisor owner for my four establishments, each with their own e-mail address, I received four e-mail announcements of the winning destinations, which means that all TripAdvisor users and product owners will have received the e-mail on Thursday, clearly a potential benefit for our city in terms of future enquiries and bookings.  Yet I was not requested to participate in a poll to choose my favourite travel destinations on any of the e-mail addresses.

When one clicks onto ‘Cape Town’ on TripAdvisor, a top ranking of B&B’s, hotels, restaurants and things to do appears.  Here the rankings are explained, in that they are based on a ranking derived from an average user score out of 5.  The number of reviewers having stayed/eaten at an establishment is also mentioned.

Once again the TripAdvisor sceptic that I am, and knowing that reviews can be written by establishments themselves (a severe criticism TripAdvisor faces continuously), by competitors wishing to disparage fellow establishments via false reviews (another severe criticism TripAdvisor faces), and by vindictive anonymous past guests, with a difficult procedure for owners/managers to respond to these, I was particularly interested in the Restaurant top 10 listing for Cape Town, as judged by TripAdvisor reviewers:

1.   La Colombe – on the 2010 Eat Out Top 20 shortlist

2.  The Opal Lounge 

3.   Caffe Hausbrandt – this is where it gets to be odd – this is a coffee shop on Green Market Square that I have never heard of

4.   Miller’s Thumb in Gardens

5.   Constantia Uitsig

6.   Savoy Cabbage

7.   Fork

8.   Willoughby’s

9.   Brio

10.  Carne

Only La Colombe made the Eat Out Top 20 shortlist, but did not make its Top 10 list in 2010, as its chef Luke Dale-Roberts left and opened his own restaurant The Test Kitchen.

The Top 10 Hotels list for Cape Town, as rated by TripAdvisor users, is as follows, ranked from 1st onwards: 2Inn1 Kensington, Derwent House Boutique Hotel (which was rated by an astounding 598 reviewers), Blackheath Lodge, Four Rosmead, An African Villa, Steenberg Hotel, dysART, Kensington Place, Villa Zest Boutique Hotel, and Table Bay Hotel.  Only two hotels are on this list, the rest being guest houses or small boutique hotels. 

The Top 10 things to do in Cape Town is an odd collection, and appears to include companies who offer tourism services: Table Mountain Walks with a guide, Table Mountain, Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens, Cape Hiking and Cycling Tours, Langa Township (a strange inclusion), Lion’s Head, Boulder’s Beach, Cape of Good Hope, Cape of Good Hope Nature Reserve, and Abseil Africa from Table Mountain.

Time will tell whether the TripAdisor 2011 Travelers’ Choice Destination Award for Cape Town will make itself felt in terms of the benefit of ‘millions’ of TripAdvisor reviewers visiting our country and our city, something every accommodation establishment and restaurant sorely needs and hopes for for the bleak winter lying ahead.  There has been no sign of any increase in enquiries since the TripAdvisor 2011 Travelers’ Choice Awards were announced last week.

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