Tag Archives: Mariette du Toit-Helmbold

World Design Capital 2014 & New7Wonders of Nature: have Cape Town ratepayers been conned?

Cape Town StadiumIn the Cape Times on Tuesday Glenn Babb, a former Director General of Foreign Affairs, and a commissioner for our country at the Venice Biennale in 1993 and 1995, wrote a lengthy article about the City of Cape Town having paid millions of Rands to support two money-making organisations handing out accolades to those cities prepared to pay for them, and which most had not been heard of previously.  The City had justified the expenditures, funded by means of ratepayers’ monies, on the basis of the tourism benefits these accolades would hold for Cape Town.

Bitingly entitled ‘Cape Town’s Devious Designs’, Babb focused on Table Mountain becoming one of the New7Wonders of Nature.  He writes that the Swiss-based company New7Wonders of Nature Foundation, which drove the campaign, makes its money from the sms-revenue generated when the citizens of cities are encouraged to vote to get one’s landmark onto the top seven list.  The company claimed that it had received 100 million votes, each of which had generated income for the company. The City of Cape Town had spent extensive monies on advertising to support the campaign to get Capetonians to vote. Continue reading →

WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 4/5 March

WhaleTalesTourism, Food, and Wine news headlines

*   Condor is adding a third flight per week between Cape Town and Frankfurt from 6 November, due to increased demand from German tourists in particular.  The airline said that there had been no increase in demand between the two destinations on the Johannesburg route, but that demand had grown between Cape Town and Frankfurt by 7% in the past year.

*   The global Hotel Price Index has shown a 3% increase in the past year, the fourth year running that it has increased after declines during the worst of the economic crisis.   The current Index at 110 is still 7 points lower than the peak in 2007.

*   At the Cape Town Art Fair last week, child visitors were asked to vote for their favourite work of art, by placing a sticker next to it, the most popular children’s choice being bought by The Sovereign Group, which sponsored the Cape Town Art Fair.  A colourful Continue reading →

‘Stellenbosch Wine Experience’ pushes Stellenbosch to be ‘leading wine tourism destination in Africa’!

StellenboschWhen I see any writing by Mariette du Toit-Helmbold, CEO of tourism consultancy Destinate and former ineffective Mommy-Tweeting CEO of Cape Town Tourism, I have to hold back the urge to laugh, not only because of her poor writing skills (despite English being one of her BA majors!) but also because of her lack of marketing skills.  Helmbold has just launched the ‘Stellenbosch Wine Experience’ for the Stellenbosch Wine Routes and Stellenbosch 360, as a joint venture between the wine and tourism elements of the second oldest town in South Africa, with the goal of becoming ‘the leading wine tourism destination in Africa‘. Helmbold adds in her document that Stellenbosch should be positioned as ‘amongst top in the world‘ too, and become ‘Africa’s wine tourism capital’!

The Stellenbosch Wine Routes is the first wine route in our country, having been established in 1971 by Spatz Sperling of Delheim, the late Frans Malan of Simonsog, and the late Neil Joubert of Spier.  Its mandate is to market the wine estates and wines of the 150 or so wineries in Stellenbosch, with its CEO Annareth Bolton having mainly run a PR campaign to date.  Previously sponsored by American Express, it no longer appears to have the backing of the credit card company.  Credit card companies appear to be all over the seemingly lucrative wine industry, Diners Club appearing to have a head start. Stellenbosch 360 is the new name for the Stellenbosch Tourism Bureau, and is run by a very competent Annemarie Ferns, long the SA Tourism Country Manager for Germany.

Helmbold spent nine years at the helm of Cape Town Tourism, never being able to rise to the level of the marketing done with close to zero budget by her predecessor, the vivacious Sheryl Ozinsky.  Helmbold did formula marketing, if one can call it that Continue reading →

Restaurants, MasterChef SA, and Social Media dominated Whale Cottage Blog in 2013!

Whale CottageWe used Google Analytics to identify the top ten blogposts on our WhaleTales Blog in 2013. The most read blogposts related to restaurants, MasterChef SA Season 2, and Social Media drama.  The top 10 most read blogposts in 2013 were the following:

1.  Autumn and Winter Cape Town and Winelands Restaurant Specials 2013 tops the list of most read, achieving almost three times as many unique readers compared to the other top 10 blogposts.  In winter restaurant specials are extremely important to Capetonians, as their wallets and purses are more bare.

2.   The year started off with a Social Media explosion, when ‘Mother Superior’ Blogger Jane-Anne Hobbs attacked us on Twitter,  protecting her ‘chicks’ Michael copy-and-paste Oliver, mommy Tweeter and then occasional CEO of Cape Town Tourism Mariette du Toit-Helmbold, former political poor-spelling-grammar ‘PR’ and Communications Consultant Skye Grove at Cape Town Tourism, and Eat Out editor Abigail I-love-Giorgio-and-Luke Donnelly.  We retaliated with a blogpost (‘New Year kicks off with Twitter bullying, bashing, and blackmail’) which attracted so much attention that Hobbs must have regretted her Tweet, as all ‘sins’ of the four ‘chicks’ were laid bare! Continue reading →