It was Futurist Faith Popcorn who predicted a trend of ‘Recareering’ back in the ‘Seventies, one having multiple careers in a lifetime, at a time when I myself was in my first career as a Futurist. I could not have foreseen that my career path from Futurist to Market Researcher, Marketing Lecturer, Research Consultant, Food PR Consultant, and then Guest House owner for the last 19 years would lead me to my new and seventh career, to that as a Continue reading →
Tag Archives: Liz Westby-Nunn
Noseweek Sweet Service and Gibson’s ‘Gourmet’ Burgers & Ribs Sour Service Awards!
The Sweet Service Award goes to Noseweek and its editor Martin Welz, for 20 years of service to South Africans, for identifying corruption amongst bankers, lawyers, business persons, and government officials, for speaking the truth, and ‘for exposing unethical behaviour in our society’, Mayor Patricia de Lille said at the anniversary celebration at Catharina’s restaurant at Steenberg last night. The role of the publication in helping the ordinary (wo)man in the street was saluted by a number of speakers, but it was the moving talk by Erma Viljoen from Pretoria, whose story was featured in the June issue of the publication, that demonstrated the unselfish service and dedication to a story by Mr Welz and his team. Mrs Viljoen worked at the University of Pretoria, and has a rare disease Mitochondrial Cytopathy, which rendered her unable to work, therefore running out of sick leave and annual leave. For the past five years she has fought for her right to be compensated by the university and its provident fund for losing her job, and approached Mr Welz more than two years ago. 
New Pretoria-based Noseweek journalist and ex-Carte Blanche investigative journalist Susan Purèn wrote the story, each sentence backed up by information proving what was written. An offer of a R40000 payout was increased to R1,3 million by the university and paid, but Mrs Viljoen is eligible to receive much more than that, the publication believes. The University reacted to the article by submitting a complaint to the Press Council, highlighting 88 errors in the three page article, literally one per sentence in the article, Mrs Viljoen shared, sitting at the same table last night. The article has led to an advocate offering his services to Mrs Viljoen (many Pretoria lawyers Continue reading →
Franschhoek Bastille Festival une bonne fête, more than just wine tasting!
The Bastille Festival was a festive weekend of tasting Franschhoek wines, connecting with friends, and trying some of the village food treats. By all accounts it was a great success, and DnA Events must be congratulated in attracting such large numbers of visitors to Franschhoek, irrespective of the winter weather! Almost every accommodation establishment was fully booked on Saturday evening, and the restaurants and shops did a roaring trade. Franschhoek looked festive, almost every business being decorated in the French tricolore, and many of the locals and visitors wearing a beret and French colours. For our French-speaking intern from Reunion, it was a surprise to experience all the Frenchness of Franschhoek this weekend.
It seemed more crowded on Saturday compared with previous years, yet there seemed to be less on offer outside of the Festival marquee than in the past. We saw the queue outside the marquee just after the midday opening time, and it stretched a few blocks down Dirkie Uys Street. We heard from our Whale Cottage Franschhoek guests that many tried to get tickets to get into the marquee on Saturday but were unable to do so, not even in the closing hour. Those that did have tickets could barely move inside the marquee as it was so full, despite a limit on the numbers, mainly caused by the afternoon rain, which meant that the ticket holders sitting outside moved into the marquee. For many it was too crowded, and they left the marquee after visiting one stand, taking a bottle of wine outside to enjoy it in less crowded conditions. Col’Cacchio had a band performing, and appeared to be one of the most popular meeting places after the marquee closed at 17h00, there being no cover charge. Last minute rooms were sold to visitors who had heard about breathalyser tests on Helshoogte Pass. The traffic on the main road was unbelievable, at times backed up to the Huguenot Monument.
Portfolio Collection sale excellent news for accommodation establishments!
It was a surprise to receive a forwarded e-mail yesterday about the sale of the Portfolio Collection, started by Liz Westby-Nunn 30 years ago, to Moja Media, effective next week. Many accommodation owners who still advertise in the publication will heave a huge sigh of relief!
Mrs Westby-Nunn started a series of three accommodation publications to market her own property Klippe Rivier outside Swellendam, and encouraged other properties to join her on this joint marketing venture. Her link to the guest house was never revealed, but it was obvious once one knew about it, in that it featured prominently in the little marketing Mrs Westby-Nunn did for her Portfolio Collection client properties.
In the days prior to the establishment of the Tourism Grading Council of South Africa and the internet, the only publication in which one could launch one’s accommodation establishment was by advertising in the Portfolio B&B Collection, and almost every accommodation establishment which started in the last twenty years advertised in this publication. In those days a third-page advertisement already cost over R10000 per annum, and with it came a prescribed annual inspection that made every guest house owner’s stress levels soar. Portfolio has a four-shield quality rating system, and Mrs Westby-Nunn lost many a client over fights about the colour of the shield awarded, especially if there was a downgrade over time. Her assessors were mostly super, and very good in providing suggestions for what could be improved to maintain the shield colour. Theresa Katz became a friend to many establishment owners in the Western Cape, and she was an important buffer between advertisers and Mrs Westby-Nunn, who did not speak to her advertisers directly, if she could help it! Mrs Westby-Nunn had no interest in building a relationship with her advertisers, and if one received a call from her one knew one was in terrible trouble, usually as a result of a guest complaint.
The Portfolio Collection consisted of three books: Country Places Collection (to which she added Private Game Reserves, and properties in other Southern African countries to justify publishing this book, and in which one was forced to take a full page advertisement at an exorbitant fee); the Retreats Collection (which was for properties with more than 5 bedrooms, and one was forced to take an half-page ad); and the B&B Collection, which was costing close to R20000 for a third page ad recently. She influenced the fortune of many a guest house, including our own, in prescribing that no B&B was allowed to be bigger than five rooms, or else one had to advertise in the far more expensive Retreats Collection, yet this was only on invitation by Mrs Westby-Nunn, meaning that she controlled the expansion in size and the marketing of the more upmarket properties. As our Whale Cottage Camps Bay had five guest rooms, we had to buy another house in Bakoven close by, with five rooms as well, to meet her prescriptive requirements.
The final straw for many advertisers came when the internet became increasingly used in accommodation marketing and bookings, and Mrs Westby-Nunn became greedy when she developed a website for her publications, listing each advertiser property on it, and then taking a 10 % commission for each booking received in addition to the advertising fee one had paid to be in her publications! Members of the Camps Bay guest house accommodation association called a meeting with Mrs Westby-Nunn’s GM, Donald Paul, a journalist who lasted at the company for less than two months, being totally unsuited to the job. Mr Paul was unable to appease the members of the association, and appeared to have tape recorded the entire discussion without our knowledge and permission, producing perfect minutes of the meeting without taking notes during the meeting. Members were adamant that they should not pay commission, which was not in the contract. Advertisers were subsequently forced to immediately sign a contract amendment agreeing to the commission payment, or face exclusion from the publication and the website. Despite the establishment of the Tourism Grading Council and it awarding stars for the quality of each establishment, Mrs Westby-Nunn stuck to her colour shield grading system, and reluctantly allowed the Tourism Grading Council star grading to be featured in her publications as well.
Mrs Westby-Nunn worked hard at marketing her publications initially, and even got herself voted onto the SA Tourism Board, and became its Chairman, which meant that she got her publications into every SA Tourism office around the world, which was excellent for her advertisers. We remember the days when our guests arrived clutching a Portfolio book, then the accommodation bible. However, Portfolio’s competitors soon rushed off to the Department of Tourism, to complain about the unfair advantage Portfolio was enjoying, and Mrs Westby-Nunn soon lost the distribution advantage, and her position on the SA Tourism board. When Mrs Westby-Nunn had a dispute with us, we bravely decided to leave the publication, and to market our Whale Cottage Portfolio (the name was chosen in ‘honour’ of Mrs Westby-Nunn’s business) ourselves! Mrs Westby-Nunn fired clients that challenged her, including a Hout Bay lawyer-owned guest house, which had taken the publication to court over the definition of ‘Atlantic Seaboard’, a case which she lost. Another guest house in Stellenbosch started a legal fund to fight the publication about the commission charged on internet bookings, and they too were not allowed to advertise again. We have never looked back in not advertising in Portfolio, and over time we have seen more and more establishments not renew their advertising due to the ever increasing cost of the advertising (20 % annual increases were the norm for many years), and due to the way that they were treated. Leaving Portfolio meant that we could expand our Whale Cottage Camps Bay to 11 rooms, and sell our Whale Cottage Bakoven. Most guest houses have been too afraid to speak up and disagree with Portfolio, knowing that they too would be fired as clients if they disagreed with any Portfolio directive.
The tables turned for Mrs Westby-Nunn when guest houses realised that they could market their guest houses equally well, especially via their own websites, and when the Tourism Grading Council became the accepted standard for accommodation quality assessment. The three Portfolio booklets reduced in size year on year, as Portfolio too was affected by the recession. Mrs Westby-Nunn’s customer-unfriendly interaction, if there was any, with her clients, and the appointment of her sister as an assessor for the Western Cape after Miss Katz had left cost her many advertisers. Her business has reduced to such an extent that the company had to amalgamate all three publications into one book this year, with only 495 establishment advertisers, to save face. The Portfolio B&B Collection used to have 500 advertisers alone in the past. Portfolio’s pay-off line ‘Benchmark of the Best’ became increasingly misleading, as top establishments withdrew their advertising, and the Tourism Grading Council became the accommodation quality benchmark in South Africa. It was evident that Mrs Westby-Nunn was looking to get out of her business, having put her Klippe Rivier property up for sale some time ago.
One has not heard of the new Portfolio publisher, and it will be interesting to see how the new owners will deal with the negative image of the company that they have just purchased. A new Portfolio iPad app. is to be launched shortly, says the company’s media release.
POSTSCRIPT 23/2: We received the following e-mail from James Delaney, one of the two directors of Moja Media, the purchasers of Portfolio: “You may not remember me, but many years ago I think you were my marketing lecturer at UCT! I read your blog about Portfolio Collection this morning, and thanks – it all helps to understand what has not worked in the past. We’ve bought Portfolio because we believe in the brand, but we’re looking at many different ways of improving things going forward. I hope they get your favourable review over time. I’ve been in tourism for many years now, I was involved with the launch of Welgevonden, built and ran Shangana Cultural Village, been a consultant on tourism projects like Cradle of Humankind and Constitution Hill, launched the Moja Heritage Collection, and now as Moja Media have been building up a stable of tourism publications (print and online). So I do know some of the marketing challenges which lie ahead, and am looking forward to making my contribution”.
Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com Twitter: @WhaleCottage