Tag Archives: Norway

Bafana Bafana v Norway International at Cape Town Stadium a failed tourism AFCON 2013 consolation prize for Cape Town!

Last night visiting soccer team Norway beat our national team Bafana Bafana 1-0, played in an International at Cape Town Stadium.  Billed as a consolation prize for the fact that Cape Town did not make the AFCON 2013 host city bid, the event last night made no contribution to attracting tourists to Cape Town at all!  The match was seen as a warm-up match for Bafana Bafana’s participation in AFCON 2013, which starts in ten days.

One wonders how the City of Cape Town can allocate millions of Rands of ratepayers’ monies to its newly created Tourism, Events, and Marketing Directorate, led by its Executive Director Anton Groenewald and reporting to Mayoral Committee member Grant Pascoe, when they are so poor at handling any marketing of Cape Town and the organisation of events in the Mother City!  The department is under pressure to earn revenue from its biggest (loss-making) asset, being the Cape Town Stadium.  It was odd then that yesterday one could read on Facebook and Twitter about the frustrations last minute ticket purchasers experienced at Computicket, only single seats being available yesterday morning, even though the full allocation of 40000 seats for the match had not yet been sold.  A new release of tickets was promised by the City, but did not appear to have been made.  On Monday morning the City was using the local radio stations to market the event, it being claimed that only 8000 tickets had been sold.  One also read on Twitter that tickets could only be bought at Computicket, and were not available at the stadium itself, which appears to be a marketing weakness too!  Last week the City placed print ads such as the one in this blogpost in the local newspapers, to encourage ticket sales, clearly a home-made design job!

The City’s media statement quoted Groenewald as saying that ‘the match is a sign of its commitment and and continuous support for Bafana Bafana‘, despite the soccer team only having played in Cape Town for the second time in three years!

Even though the City has seen it in the past, when Manchester United played Ajax Cape Town last winter, soccer matches do not attract out of town visitors to Cape Town. The same was the case yesterday, for two reasons. The soccer matches are supported by local Capetonians, and the support clearly is not attractive enough yet for Western Cape residents to drive from other cities and towns to see the match, especially as the starting time of 20h30 was so late.  Even more so this starting time would have necessitated accommodation for out-of-town soccer fans, but we did not see any enquiries or bookings for the soccer match.  In addition, Cape Town is still bursting at its tourism seams, and so if there had been a tourism requirement, there would not have been any space for them to be accommodated in a suburb such as Camps Bay!   One wonders why the City chose a date for the match at a time when Cape Town did not need any additional visitors!

Had the Cape Town Stadium been full tonight, with all 40000 seats sold at an average price of R75 (ticket prices were R100 and R50), the total revenue would only have been R3 million, which would not have covered the costs.  We know that the City buses in soccer fans for free in the last minute to save face, that Computicket would have charged the City of Cape Town a fee per ticket sold, that not all tickets will have been sold, and that more cheaper tickets will have been sold, meaning that the real income may have been closer to R1,5 million income, hardly worth the effort in terms of costs relative to income.  The match also damaged the image of the City of Cape Town, in reflecting its inability to organise and market events!

It was the City of Cape Town and its Councillor Grant Pascoe that have cost Cape Town, and with it its tourism industry as well as soccer lovers, a vast income which Cape Town would have earned had it been selected as a Host City for AFCON 2013, which kicks off on 19 January, and runs over three weeks. South Africa was awarded the African soccer games when FIFA cancelled Libya as the host country due to political turmoil.  The City of Cape Town owes the tourism and hospitality industry lost income!

POSTSCRIPT 9/1: The following comment about the ticket sales by the City of Cape Town was posted to this blogpost today: “I’m afraid it gets worse. The inside track has it that due to slow ticket sales days before, they utilised their own infrastructure to sell tickets, with the MyCiti kiosks etc. And of course, when they were deluged with last-minute sales, they had to re-load all those tickets on computicket, at a 1000 tickets per time. Which was a huge disadvantage to all those queue-ing as those tickets were snapped up online within minutes of their being loaded onto the system. Hence the estimate of 10 000 turned away at Computicket due to tickets being “sold out” Groenewald sheepishly claimed they didn’t take into consideration that Capetonians buy tickets at the last minute! Oy va voi!”

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

Restaurant responsibility: which colour fish should go onto the menu?

A documentary about overfishing will be screened at Nu Metro cinemas from 22 October onwards, and is an ‘inconvenient truth’ about the future of the global fishing industry.  “The End of the Line” is a film based on a book with the same name, written by British environmental reporter Charles Clover, reports the Cape Times.    It raises important issues about which fish consumers should eat, and which fish types restaurants should include on their menus.

Clover says that if fishing continues unabated, fish stocks around the world will be depleted by 2048.   He views fish not only as a food type, but also as a type of wildlife which needs to be protected.  The protection of whales by the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is well-known, and is the only sea mammal receiving any direct protection from a private organisation, to prevent whaling by the Japanese in the main, but also by fisherman in Norway and Iceland.

Despite good research provided to politicians about responsible quotas that should be set, to allow for the recovery of depleted stock, they tend to set higher than desired quotas, with disastrous results for the future of the fishing industry.  The European Union ministers, for example, have allowed 61 000 tons of bluefish tuna, whereas the quota should be 30 000 tons.   Consumers can make a difference, by refusing to order, buy and eat fish species that are on the endangered list.  

Clover wants his film to encourage consumers to buy ‘sustainable seafood’, to support responsible fishing, and to support the creation of marine reserves.  The Southern African Sustainable Seafood Initiative (Sassi) has worked on an educational program since 2005, to make consumers aware of endangered seafood types.   It has updated its 2005 list, and has moved Prawns, Sole and Kingklip from its “Green – Best choice” list to the Orange – Think Twice” list, making almost every local restaurant guilty of moving away from sustainable and responsible seafood usage.

The Sassi list encourages one to eat fish on its Green list, which includes Alaskan salmon, Anchovy, Angelfish, Calamari, Canned tuna, Dorado, Hake, Herring, Maasbanker, Kob (land-based), Mussels, Oysters, Sardines, Snoek, Crayfish, Yellowtail and Yellowfin Tuna.  The Orange list includes farmed Abalone, Atlantic Yellowfin Tuna, farmed Atlantic/Norwegian Salmon, Cape Dory, line-caught Geelbek/Cape Salmon, Hake, King Mackerel, Kingklip, Kob, Monk, Prawns, Red Roman, Sole (East coast), Swordfish, White Stumpnose and locally-farmed Yellowtail.  Encouraging news is that projects to improve the stocks of Kingklip, Monk and East Coast Sole are underway.   Fish types on the Red list, to absolutely avoid, are Black Musselcracker, Bluefin Tuna, Kob (caught by trawlers), Red Steenbras, Red Stumpnose, Cape Stumpnose, Galjoen, West Coast Steenbras , White Musselcracker and White Steenbras.

What makes it difficult to apply ‘sustainable seafood’ ordering is the lack of knowledge of restaurants about the source of the fish, and the fishing style.   A handy service allows one to text cell 079 499 8795 with the name of the fish, and one will receive a reply as to the degree of endangeredness of the seafood.   The only restaurant that I have seen carry the Sassi logo, demonstrating its support for sustainable seafood usage, is Pete Goffe-Wood’s Wild Woods in Hout Bay.  

I checked out the fish species on the current Eat Out Top 10 restaurant list menus.   Roots and Terroir do not have a menu on their websites.   Rust en Vrede, Grand Provence and The Tasting Room do not use any seafood which is not on the Green list.   La Colombe, Overture, and Mosaic serve Prawns and/or Kingklip, which are on the Orange list.  The Roundhouse serves Tuna, Kob and Scallops – as the type of Tuna, and fishing style of the Kob is not specified, one cannot judge its responsibility in including these seafood types on its menu.  Ninth Avenue Bistro serves Tuna, but does not specify which type.   Overture serves ‘Silverfish’, but it does not appear on the Sassi list at all. 

For more information about the Southern African Sustainable Seafood Initiative see www.wwf.org/za.sassi.

POSTSCRIPT 23/9: In the Cape Times of 22/9, it is reported that the prediction of fish becoming extinct by 2048 has been slammed by South African scientists.   However, Charles Clover, author of the book, says that this is mentioned in the film.

POSTSCRIPT 16/10: The Weekend Argus of today reports that Swiss billionaire Ernesto Bertarelli has pledged about R 38 million to ‘fund the policing of the UK’s Marine Protected Area around the Chagos Island in the Indian Ocean”, in response to seeing “End of the Line”.   The documentary has had an impact on celebrities too – Jamie Oliver has taken bluefin tuna off his menu;  and Charlize Theron, Sienna Miller, Sting, Stephen Fry, Woody Harrelson and Prince Charles are all supporting the Blue Marine Foundation, which was set up as a result of the documentary by using private sector support to improve fish stock and sustainability.

POSTSCRIPT 16/10: Blowfish Restaurant in Blouberg is the most SASSI-aware restaurant in South Africa, as far as we aware.  A page of their menu is dedicated to their “Green Values”, and each of their green fishes are marked on the menu.   They do however also stock orange fish on the SASSI list.   A SASSI poster has been put up near the fish counter in the restaurant, to educate restaurant patrons.

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

Whale peace, not whale wars, needed

The recent draft “Peace Plan”, developed by a group of 12 member countries of the International Whaling Commission, for sanction and approval at its next meeting in June in Morocco, should be supported as a “realistic compromise”, says South Africa’s doyen of whale and dolphin conservation, Nan Rice, of the Dolphin Action and Protection Group, reports the Cape Argus.

Rice was commenting on the draft plan to allow controlled commercial whaling for the next ten years, as it would reduce the number of whales that Japan, Norway and Iceland would kill collectively, compared to the current ruling, which allows these countries to kill whales for “scientific purposes”.   She did state, however, that as long as whaling countries can make money out of whaling, it would be impossible to stop them from killing whales completely.

Greenpeace, an international environmental activist group, has criticised the peace plan, saying that it is not strict enough, and does not indicate any attempt to ultimately stop whaling in the whale sanctuary, and it still allows the fin whale, an endangered species, to be killed.   Restricted commercial whaling would allow the Japanese to sell whale meat for human consumption in Japan.

However, the “Peace Plan” includes a proposal for a Southern Ocean whale sanctuary, scrapping the ‘scientific’ whaling loophole used by the Japanese in the main, the reduction in the number of whales caught in the ten year period, and a restructuring of the Commission, all of which are positive aspects, according to Greenpeace.

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

SA in New York Times top 31 destination list for 2010

South Africa is one of 31 destinations recommended for travel in 2010 by the New York Times on its site www.nytimes.com.  The top five destinations are Sri Lanka, Patagonia Wine Country (San Patricio del Chavar), Seoul, Mysore in India, and Copenhagen. 

“Waiting in the wings”, according to the article, as places to go to in 2010 are countries/cities which include Damascus, Antarctica, Leipzig, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Shanghai, Minorca, Costa Rica, Marrakesh, Bahia in Brazil, Kitzbuehl in Austria, Norway and South Africa.

South Africa made 22nd place on the list, and its selection is motivated by the Soccer World Cup taking place this year,  and Cape Town is highlighted as the best city in the country.  The full text motivating the selection of South Africa on the list follows:

“As host of the 2010 World Cup this summer, South Africa has gotten its game on with a flurry of new stadiums, new hotels and safari lodges.  While soccer is being played across nine cities, much of the action off the field is taking place in Cape Town. Already known for its stunning beaches, mouthwatering cuisine and sophisticated night life, the city is welcoming high-end hotels, including the recently opened One & Only Cape Town and the forthcoming Taj Cape Town (www.tajhotels.com/capetown). Set to open this month, the Taj will have 166 rooms, many with views of Table Mountain. Also scheduled to open in Cape Town this year — but not in time for the World Cup — is the second branch of the nascent Missoni Hotels group (the first property opened in Edinburghlast year, with future outposts planned for Kuwait, Brazil and Oman). Between matches, there’s plenty of time to go on a safari. If money is no object, check out the Ulusaba  (www.ulusaba.virgin.com), a private game reserve that’s part of Richard Branson‘s collection of luxury vacation properties. It has opened the new Cliff Lodge, with private swimming pools and spectacular views of the bush. Prices start at 13,800 South African rand (around $1,878 at 7.35 rand to the dollar) a night for two.”

The full article can be read here.

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