Tag Archives: Middle East

WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 5 September

WhaleTalesTourism, Food, and Wine news headlines

*    Constantia Uitsig has been sold, we have been informed, and its Constantia Uitsig restaurant is closing down on 12 September. The hotel and spa are closing too, 180 staff losing their jobs.  La Colombe and River Café will continue to trade for now. (via e-mail)

*   The International Air Transport Association (IATA) July 2013 statistics show an average  growth of 5% in air passengers relative the July 2012.  Highest growth was in the Middle East (8%), and could have been even higher had Ramadan not fallen into this period.  Africa did second best, with 7,5% growth, followed by Latin America at 7%.  China and India are below average in their passenger growth.

*   Competitive pressure from the introduction of new low cost FlySafair is likely to reduce the cost of domestic flying.

*    A ‘Bandwidth Barn’  is to open in the Cape Town townships Nyanga and Continue reading →

Cape Town Tourism’s outgoing Chairman admits to failure in addressing Seasonality!

The article about Seasonality in Southern African Tourism Update on Thursday, quoting outgoing Chairman of Cape Town Tourism Ian Bartes, was surprising in its honesty in admitting that ‘Cape Town needs an orchestrated and cohesive effort by the public and private sector to change its seasonality problem, which has not improved over the past decade despite numerous winter tourism campaigns‘!  Surprising too is that he states that attempts to contain Seasonality have been unsuccessful, which means that he is pointing a finger at Cape Town Tourism, which has been tasked with addressing Seasonality.

Mr Bartes expanded by saying that Seasonality is the reason why most international airlines (and SAA too, one can assume) do not service the Cape Town route all year round, and ‘why prices are hiked over the season to make up for winter losses‘!

In the past 10 years Cape Town has been 200 000 passengers short in each of the winter months relative to the good summer months, to justify a year-round airline service, and Mr Bartes admitted that ‘We haven’t changed the situation in 10 years’! This admission is ironic, as Mr Bartes has been the Chairman of Cape Town Tourism for the past eight years, and should have known better than any other Board director how the airlines work, and how dire the winter situation is for them.  Interestingly, Mr Bartes offers the solution to Seasonality, and one wonders why he did not practice what he preaches in his capacity as Chairman of Cape Town Tourism: ‘Unless we address the seasonal drop we will not get the air access we want. We need to stimulate supply by talking to the airlines and we need to stimulate demand by investing in more events in the winter months’.

The tourism industry has called on Cape Town Tourism to schedule more events in winter, and it has been promised year on year by its CEO Mariette du Toit-Helmbold that this would happen.  Yet no new events have been added to the Cape Town events calendar in the winter months of May – August.

Of greater concern is the future projection by Mr Bartes, stating that ‘demand in general is dwindling due to the economic crisis in key source markets and soaring fuel prices pushing up airfares. He explained that the seasonal airline service reflects the decline in the number of tourists from Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, and France, whereas arrivals from Africa, Asia, North America, and the Middle East are increasing.  In the twelve month period from April 2011 to March this year passenger numbers of 8,6 million at Cape Town International only grew by 4,6%, while Mr Bartes projects zero growth in arrivals in the next two years. Just more than 80% of passengers (7,1 million) arriving at Cape Town International are domestic passengers, and the arrivals are expected to grow in the next two years, while the 1,5 million international arrivals are expected to decline over the same period.

The article did not state what the occasion of the interview with Mr Bartes was, and has not been issued by Cape Town Tourism as a media statement.  It is unlikely that the interview was conducted in Mr Bartes’ capacity of Service Standards Manager at Cape Town International, as Mr Bartes is not the airport spokesperson.

Seasonality is a harsh reality for the tourism industry in the Western Cape, and bites deep into the pockets of all its operators in our industry.  Monies made in the six good summer months is cancelled out in paying operational costs and fixed expenses in the winter months, meaning that many break even or make a loss, as has been the case since 2010 in particular.  Cape Town Tourism’s pathetic attempts at hosting events such as the Travel ‘Bloggers’ Tweet Up in August, and the ‘100 Women 100 Wine’ event it ran last year and is repeating next month, its ad campaign with Thompson Tours in the Sunday Times, and its constant Tweeting at the expense of all other marketing communication, have made no impact in bringing more visitors to Cape Town in winter!   By contrast, Franschhoek Wine Valley has worked for years in hosting events in winter, its Bastille Festival filling the town on the weekend closest to Bastille Day, no matter how bad the weather is.  The tourism body has grown its portfolio of events to one a month, which means that many tourism businesses are close to full on one weekend a month at least. One hopes that new City of Cape Town Place Marketing Director Rory Viljoen will make Seasonality his priority in developing the Strategic Plan for marketing Cape Town!

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

SAA in financial turbulence, under pressure to take off from R1,3 billion loss!

SAA will not be privatised, said Malusi Gigaba, Minister of Public Enterprises, at the SAA AGM yesterday, reports Southern African Tourism Update.  In a hard-hitting speech, the Minister threw a number of challenges to the new Board of the airline, to address its R1,3 billion loss in the past financial year, and to address financial irregularities. Privatisation of the airline was rejected outright, the Minister stating that attempts by SWISS, Air New Zealand, and Japan Airlines to privatise had proven to be unsuccessful.

Interesting is that the Minister identified that the Johannesburg – Beijing route is unprofitable, one of the airline’s focus routes, and ironic, given that the Department of Tourism announced yesterday that 60000 Chinese tourists had travelled to our country in the first half of this year, a 68% increase compared to the first half of 2011. China now is our 4th largest source market, and has overtaken France.  Tourism Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk referred to the good Chinese tourism performance: ‘The launch of SAA’s direct flight between Beijing and Johannesburg in January this year has contributed to growth from this market, helping to meet some of the obvious demand for Destination South Africa in China’. The Beijing route would require more investment and capital, said the Minister.

Other reasons for the financial failure was unprofitable long-haul routes, competition from Middle East airlines, high fuel costs, and challenging ‘global aviation trading conditions’, SAA performing worse than its airline peers! The airline’s CFO Wolf Meyer said that the fuel cost increases (up by 36%) alone had made SAA unprofitable.  Maintenance costs had increased by 32%.  ‘Irregular expenditure’ of R128 million, and R 4 million ‘wasteful expenditure‘ were also recorded in the financial statements, the latter figure containing R3 million for baggage claims.  Good news is that Board members will not receive increases in the current financial year!

The new Board was instructed by Minister Gigaba to appoint a new CEO in the next three months, and to present a turnaround strategy by 15 December. Systems are to be streamlined, and red tape removed, ‘to make important decisions and take action without delay’.

SAA appears to be having a capacity problem on its Johannesburg – Cape Town route, Whale Cottage Portfolio guests regularly feeding back that they cannot book flights to Cape Town on Fridays due to seat unavailability, or excessive supply and demand pricing of R6000 for a SAA economy class ticket. Desperate travellers have to buy a Business Class ticket just to get to Cape Town, making Cape Town inaccessible to the Gauteng market, contrary to SA Tourism’s strategy to increase Domestic Tourism to make up for the shortfall in international visitors!

POSTSCRIPT 20/10:  Ironic is that SAA has just announced that it has strengthened its sales team for the UK and Ireland!

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

Mezepoli Meze and Wine Bar Sweet and FNB Sour Service Awards!

The Sweet Service Award goes to Mezepoli Meze and Wine Bar in Camps Bay, for hosting the members of the Camps Bay Guest House Association for lunch last week. The restaurant has a sister restaurant at Melrose Arch in Johannesburg, and can seat more than 100 guests. It serves sushi as well as a selection of nearly 100 Mediterranean and Middle East meze dishes, including cheeses, vegetarian mezes, dips, salads, meats, seafoods, and desserts.  The restaurant offers platters for a set price of R135, including salads, haloumi, dips with pita bread, falafel, spanakopita, dolmades, calamari, keftethes, and souvlaki chicken, which we sampled, a very enjoyable meal.

The Sour Service Award goes to FNB, and its poor service in supplying its client, the V&A Waterfront’s newly opened Vovo Telo, with a credit card machine.  Having eaten and shopped at Vovo Telo soon after it opened, it was a surprise to hear that they did not have a credit card machine, which meant that the goods selected had to be returned.  A few days later the situation was the same, so we decided to call on customer Twitter power, Tweeting FNB MD @MichaelJordaan about the problem.  He delegated this to @RBJacobs, who calls himself the ‘FNBGuy’, and he seemed a real go-getter initially, in  terms of his Twitter responses. Every deadline FNB gave Vovo Telo Cape Town in terms of delivery date and time was not met by them, and when they delivered a credit card machine four days after the commencement of the Twitter requests, and two weeks after the outlet opened, it was a fixed line one, and not a portable credit card machine required by restaurants!  Their service levels are unacceptable, and FNB demonstrated that it cannot satisfy basic customer needs on Social Media, not even if Tweets are directed to its MD.

The WhaleTales Sweet & Sour Service Awards are presented every Friday on the WhaleTales blog.  Nominations for the Sweet and Sour Service Awards can be sent to Chris von Ulmenstein at info@whalecottage.com.   Past winners of the Sweet and Sour Service Awards can be read on the Friday posts of this blog, and in the WhaleTales newsletters on the www.whalecottage.com website.