Tag Archives: Michael Jordaan

WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 1/2 March

WhaleTalesTourism, Food, and Wine news headlines

*   The price of petrol increases by 36 cents a litre at midnight on 5 March.

*   To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Amarula brand, Distell is launching a new spirit Amarula Gold this month. The new 30% spirit is described as ‘aromatic and vibrantly fruity with intriguingly spicy notes and a very smooth texture’.

*   Tourism Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk is attending the second World Tourism Forum Lucerne Think Tank in Switzerland this weekend.  This year the focus is on ‘Infrastructure and Investment’, with attention on financing tourism and travel infrastructure.

*   The Franschhoek Literary Festival will be held between 16 and 18 May, and 170 authors will speak on various topics.  Speakers include poets Adam Small and Breyten Breytenbach; heavy-weight writers Damon Galgut and Mark Gevisser; and controversial writers Andre Brink, Max du Preez, and Tim Noakes.  Archbishop Desmond Tutu and his daughter Mpho, as well as former FNB MD and now Mxit Chairman Michael Jordaan will also participate in the pregramme. 

*   The 4000 strong penguin colony at Betty’s Bay is under threat from a diesel spill Continue reading →

WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 19 February

WhaleTalesTourism, Food, and Wine news headlines

*   Johannesburg teenager Filipa da Silva has won a competition launched by American Idols presenter Ryan Seacrest, for the best rendition of One Direction’s ‘Story of my Life’, beating former Eurovision Irish twin contestants Jedward.

*   The Tourism Indaba, held in May for the past 24 years, could be threatened by three trade and travel shows held in Cape Town under the Africa Travel Week umbrella the week prior to what is the country’s largest tourism and travel show, organised by SA Tourism and held in Durban.

*   Johannesburg was the most popular tourism destination in Africa in 2012, according to the MasterCard Third Annual Global Destination Cities Index, and should be the continent’s most visited city too, with an estimated 2,5 million visitors spending R35 billion.

*   The inaugural AfrAsia Bank Cape Wine Auction 2014 will be held over lunch at Delaire Graff on 15 March.  It will be preceded by a Barrel Tasting and Auction Preview at Waterford Estate the evening before, and the funds will go to funding education in the Winelands, benefitting Pebbles Project, the MAD Charity, and the Click Foundation.  The Cape Wine Auction Trust has been created, and its founding Trustees are Michael Jordaan, Ken Kinsey-Quick, Wendy Appelbaum, and Mike Continue reading →

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

WhaleTalesTourism, Food, and Wine news headlines

*   Pernod Ricard, international marketer of Absolut, Mumm, and Martell, has seen a 18% decline in sales in China in the first half of its financial year.

*   The Karoo is one of the world’s top nine stargazing destinations, which includes the Algarve in Portugal, Ayer’s Rock in Australia, Atacama Desert in Chile, Jasper National Park in Canada, Mauna Kea in Hawaii, Grumeti in Tanzania, Kitt Peak in Arizona, and Gülpe in Germany.

*   SAA has applied to introduce new routes, and new codeshare agreements with a host of new destinations, including Moscow, Asuncion in Paraguay, Lomé in Togo, Praia and Ilha do Sol in Cape Verde, Jakarta, Kingston, and Port of Spain  in Trinidad and Tobago.  The airline has also applied to increase the frequency of its African routes, including Lagos, Blantyre, Lilongwe, and Accra.

*   Twitter now has 5,5 million users in South Africa, up by 129% in just one year. (via Twitter)

*   Michael Jordaan, owner of Bartinney wine estate and former CEO of FNB, found parallels Continue reading →

WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 1 October

WhaleTalesTourism, Food, and Wine news headlines

*   A 13-series ‘5 Sterre met Reuben‘ launched on kykNET today, with Chef Reuben Riffel cooking a three course meal, paired to a wine, and chatting to a product sponsor.  The program will air on Tuesdays at 17h30.

*   The last three MasterChef SA blogposts we wrote received record viewership in September, the blog achieving a record of almost 40000 unique pageviews), according to Google Analytics. The most read blogposts were the prediction of a controversial MasterChef SA end, Ozzy Osman’s controversial elimination, and Kamini Pather’s controversial win.  The competition we ran to predict the MasterChef SA winner also featured on the top blogpost list, as did our review of La Parada on Bree, the Winter Restaurant specials, the recent restaurant openings and closures, the ‘Mickey Mouse’ training done Continue reading →