Tag Archives: occupancy

‘Fabulous February’ Cape Tourism’s best month, but media report irresponsible!

February has drawn to a close, and has not disappointed the tourism industry in Cape Town in giving it a welcome confidence and income boost.  However, February occupancy in Camps Bay has been on a par with 2011, at just under 90%.  February is by far the most popular tourist month of the year now, which it previously shared with November.

February is attractive to the UK market specifically, and to the northern hemisphere generally, to have a break after a long and bitterly cold winter this year.  The UK had school half term in this period too, allowing families to travel.  The Mining Indaba earlier this month was a tremendous boost for the city.  Our statistics for Camps Bay show that the share of the UK market in February was at its lowest level in the past six years, at only 20%, with that of South African visitors having increased dramatically from 9 % in 2007 to 38% this month.  The German tourist share at 15 % this month is on a par with 2007 and 2008, a welcome improvement after a decline in the years between 2008 and 2012.

In January occupancy in Camps Bay improved significantly to 72%, from 58% the year before, but it was still below the occupancy achieved in January between 2007 and 2010.   A similar trend was evident in December 2011.  Hermanus showed a significant recovery in February, with a 40% occupancy, double that of February 2011, the best performance since 2008.  Sadly Franschhoek experienced by far its worst February ever in six years, largely due to the sharp decline in the number of weddings which have traditionally been held in the village in February, and German tourists being less interested in visiting Franschhoek, choosing Stellenbosch in preference.  The Franschhoek Wine Valley tourism association has done no visible marketing in the past year, other than the hosting of a few events, and its reduced marketing in using the services of a one-day-a-week consultant is not helping!

It was with concern that we read an article in the Weekend Argus last weekend, irresponsibly entitled ‘Tourists flock to Mother City in record numbers’. The article’s claim that ‘Cape Town’s extended summer has translated into the city’s best-ever holiday season, with tourism experts declaring that predictions for a much-improved season have been right on the money’, is misleading, and completely incorrect.  The problem probably lies with who the journalist interviewed as so-called ‘tourism experts’.

The article quoted a number of tourism players, and the statements of most would be shot down by the industry, given their own experiences of the past few months, and how these compare with previous years:

*   The biggest culprit is Cape Chamber of Commerce President Michael Bagraim, who has enjoyed using his position as President to make media statements about any possible topic, including tourism, about which he has little experience as a labour lawyer. He claimed that the tourism figures ‘were the best he had seen yet for the city’ (our underlining).  His statement implies that he may not have seen all potential past tourism information, and it shows in his subsequent quotes to the journalist, including the nonsensical statement that ‘This past summer has certainly been the best, and we hope the upcoming summer will be even better. At the current rate I think Cape Town could easily become the best tourist destination in the world’, not defining how he defines ‘best’!  He clearly does not understand the definition of ‘summer’, and that it still has another six weeks to go, with far lower occupancy expected in this period.

Mr Bagraim goes from bad to worse, by praising the World Cup for the good performance: “I believe that we are now experiencing the rewards from the World Cup, the reason being that so many tourists currently in the city were here during that period, and are now returning”. We cannot agree with Mr Bagraim at all, showing that he was completely out of his depth in this interview!   He added that word of mouth from those that had attended the World Cup 18 months ago, the resultant media coverage, Table Mountain’s New7Wonders of Nature (not yet confirmed for Cape Town), and being named 2014 World Design Capital ‘would help ensure that Cape Town’s tourist enterprise would continue to thrive’ (our underlining).  Mr Bagraim clearly was not aware that the tourism industry experienced a crisis in 2011, and was nowhere near ‘thriving’!  He added:‘The one thing to remember about tourism is that it is foreign money which comes into the city, meaning it is new money that gets recycled throughout the economy’ (our underlining).  Once again Mr Bagraim has not been briefed about the visitor composition, and that the majority of tourists in the Cape are South African!  The rest of his statement would make economists shudder!  We can however agree with his declaration that ‘Tourism is certainly the biggest money-spinner for the city, and it will continue to be so for many years to come’!

*  Western Cape Minister of Tourism Alan Winde quoted improved visitor numbers for ‘Table Mountain National Park’ and Robben Island, but the time period was not stated.

*   Calvyn Gilfellan, CEO of Cape Town Routes Unlimited, issued a media statement a week ago, along similar lines of the Weekend Argus article, and the journalist must have sought inspiration for his headline from this irresponsible media statement about the ‘interim summer’ period.  Mr Gilfellan is quoted as saying that Table Mountain had seen a 25 % increase in visitor numbers between November – January relative to the same period a year ago.  His conclusion is that it proves ‘the impact an international accolade has on the popularity of the attraction’. What Gilfellan neglected to mention was that the improved weather (i.e. reduced number of days on which the Cableway did not operate due to rain and gale force wind) in the past three months relative to a year ago played a huge role in the tourism numbers achieved for Cape Town’s icon.

*   Cape Town Tourism’s Communication Manager Skye Grove was also quoted, in a nonsensical linkage made between tour guides and the increased use of technology, ‘which should spur tour guides to up their game’, she is quoted as saying.  Further she is quoted as saying that tour guides should maintain high standards of quality and content ‘to keep up both with the challenge of technology, but also with the high tourist numbers’, a statement that does not make sense!  Ms Grove sent out a media release last week, sharing informal ‘research’ Cape Town Tourism had conducted amongst its members about their performance in December and January. With the exception of the accommodation members, the sample sizes were not mentioned, yet detailed analyses were provided, and one can assume that the subsample sizes were tiny (only 106 accommodation establishments responded, representing by far their largest member segment).  Ms Grove quotes passenger arrival figures at Cape Town International, up on the year before, which was a particularly poor period of arrivals.  She quoted Ravi Nadasen, GM of The Cullinan, who stated that accommodation establishments had not experienced the same good performance as had tourism products, due to the oversupply of accommodation in the city, as well as a trend to visitors staying with family and friends.

*   Mayoral Committee Member for Tourism, Events and Marketing, Grant Pascoe, is receiving a lot of coverage via Cape Town Tourism’s media releases, in the few that they issue, and his statements in the Cape Town Tourism media release were included in the Weekend Argus article, once again demonstrating how out of touch the Councillor is with tourism in the city.  He is quoted as saying that ‘the boost in the number of visitors to the city was a trend that was expected to continue into 2012’, given a number of events in March and April, including the Argus Cycle Tour, the Cape Town International Jazz Festival, Design Indaba, and the Two Oceans Marathon.  Our experience is that events (e.g. J&B Met) have attracted fewer non-Cape Town visitors to Cape Town this year, and even the Argus Cycle Tour has not yet filled Camps Bay, as it has in the past years.

We have previously pleaded for greater honesty and reliability in the reporting of the performance of the tourism industry.  The summer season is not yet over, and the past twelve months should not be the only benchmark of tourism performance, given that 2011 was the worst tourism year ever experienced in the Cape. It is no achievement to see tourism improvements relative to 2011!

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

Cape Town festive season tourism up on 2010

Cape Town is bursting at the seams, and will get even fuller from today onwards, when international visitors fly into the city after their Christmas celebrations with their families.  While the occupancy for the festive season (i.e. Christmas – 8 January) is improved, the overall occupancy for December is on a par with that of last December.

The Cape Argus front page story headline ‘Tourists pour into Cape’ was based on a 4% increase in domestic arrivals in November, relative to the year before, and is therefore sensationalist and incorrect. Expectations of the Table Mountain Aerial Cableway Company (100000 visitors estimated for December) and the V&A Waterfront (3 million visitors expected in December) are optimistic, but comparative 2010 figures are not provided .   The newspaper, which also reported a 14% increase in international arrivals on 21 December, relative to the ‘last festive season’, appears to be confused about the definition of the ‘festive season’, seen by the industry as only starting with Christmas, and running until the day before the first working day in January (as early as 3 January, or 9 January for most).

The article also quoted Cape Town Tourism in saying that the arrival statistics were not reflected in the occupancy levels of accommodation establishments in the city, many arrivals staying with friends and family.  Cape Town Tourism’s market research methods have been dubious in the past, and do not appear to reflect that many international visitors now own a house or apartment in the Cape.  The tourism body spokesperson Skye Grove also blamed price sensitivity for hotels and guest houses not being fully booked, due the ‘current economic conditions’. One wonders how Cape Town Tourism drew this conclusion, without interviewing tourists.   She also blames the unfilled beds on the 40 % increased room capacity in the past four years, in preparation for the 2010 World Cup, with a current total bed availability of 60 000 in greater Cape Town, she said.  Ms Grove did not mention the feedback about Cape Town having become an expensive destination.  She also said that tourists are “looking for added value and expect excellent service. They are, more than ever, prepared to shop around for the best deal when it comes to experiences, food, drinks and accommodation”.

The competing tourism body Cape Town Routes Unlimited provided a different statistic, its CEO Calvyn Gilfellan saying that 20 % more beds had been added in the past two years, and his body expected a ‘slight return to normality’, without a definition thereof.  He warned the industry to not overcharge: “Competition is tough, people know they have to be realistic with their rates”. Alan Winde, Western Cape Minister of Tourism and Finance, echoed Gilfellan, in stating that there would be a slight improvement in visitor numbers, but he warned the tourism industry to ‘…don’t expect fireworks’.  He added: “The market is tough and is going to become even more competitive, so we have to up our game. Quality and service will set us apart from the rest”.

Whale Cottage Camps Bay is likely to finish December with an occupancy of 70 %, slightly up on December 2010, but a huge drop from the 90+% occupancy of December 2007 – 2009.  What is different is that the guest house is fully booked for the Christmas days, which is an improvement on the past years. However, the first two weeks of December were much quieter than in the past.  A similar pattern is evident in Franschhoek, although the occupancy level for the month is below 20%, while occupancy in Hermanus is much reduced relative to last December.  The Mount Nelson Hotel is not full at the moment, but will fill up later this week, one of the managers told me yesterday.

For Cape Town to be a world class city offering quality service, as per the call by Minister Winde, restaurants should be encouraged to open on Christmas Day, and particularly in the evening. Kloof Street is a restaurant street boasting 35 restaurants, of which only three were open yesterday evening, two of them being franchise restaurants, and Mason’s being filled with tourists staying in the Tamboerskloof and Gardens areas.  The service at Mason’s was particularly slow, the owner apologetically saying that all his staff had called in sick, so patrons had to expect a 25 minute waiting time for food (my cappuccino took this long to make too). Poor spelling on their Christmas dinner menu does not give our city a professional image.

Newspaper headlines about the tourism season should wait until the festive season has ended, and should be based on reliable information, journalists having to be responsible in their information sources. Cape Town tourism bodies should be professional in conducting their market research!  The increased tourism numbers, mainly domestic tourists, do not seem to be the result of any marketing efforts by Cape Town Tourism or by Cape Town Routes Unlimited. Cape Town Tourism launched its ‘You don’t need a holiday, you need Cape Town’ campaign to huge fanfare at the World Travel Market in London and at its AGM in the past two months, but the campaign seems to have run out of steam, and is not visible in any media.

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

Cape Town Tourism sees business improvement, poorly communicated!

Cape Town tourism businesses are expecting ‘a marginally better business window (sic) for season 2011/2012′, says one of the most badly worded media releases ever received from Cape Town Tourism, the City’s tourism marketing body.

The media release received yesterday is riddled with errors, making it difficult to understand – in short, it appears that a poll was ‘tallied’ (sic) amongst Cape Town Tourism members last week, which led to the following conclusions:

*   ‘a promising (sic) 57% of accommodation providers are expecting to have a better or much better remainder of the 2011/2012 summer season, when compared to 2010′. It is unclear how Cape Town Tourism defines the summer season, its CEO Mariette du Toit-Helmbold having been confused about the exact definition of the summer season in Cape Town earlier this year.

*   bookings are ‘last minute’

*   tourism spend is lagging its growth (but this apparent contradiction is not explained)

*   the accommodation sector ‘anticipated‘ (sic) the ‘Global Financial Crisis’, ‘with only 18,9% saying that the impact was more than they expected’, in contrast to 54,5 % of tour operators, amongst whom ‘the impact was more than expected’. What was expected is not clear from the release.

*   half the tour operators polled have had a better year

*   ‘the hard work poured (sic) into developing new markets in the emerging economies’ (one assumes they are referring to BRICS countries, not all ‘emerging’ any more), is not yet paying off, Cape Town Tourism admits

*    ‘Traditional key source markets such as the UK, Germany and the Netherlands are still dominating the visitor scene’ – every tourism business will laugh at this statement, experiencing first hand that the UK tourist market has fallen away almost completely!

*   accommodation occupancy does not reflect domestic arrivals, which means that locals are staying with friends and family.

*  tourists are price sensitive, and should not be lured by lower rates, but rather should be offered ‘great value’, advises Mrs Helmbold

*    ‘…visitors are using online tools like Tripadvisor to plot (sic) their stay’!

*   Given Cape Town’s number one Tripadvisor destination status, ‘Cape Town already has a place in the sun, but we need to make sure we maintain our level of exposure and favour’ (sic)!

*   Accolades such as World Design Capital 2014 and ‘New Natural 7 Wonders of the World’ – actually called New7Wonders of Nature – give Cape Town greater appeal.

*   ‘We may not see our global brand position translate into visitors this year, but the attention we sought in 2010 is being sustained and capitalised on during 2011’, Cape Town Tourism admitting that the marketing of the city in the World Cup year of 2010 will not have borne fruit in 2011, one must assume, but the sentence is contradictory.

*   Cape Town’s tourism industry and the city economy need a boost in 2012, admits ‘MAYCO member for Tourism Events (sic) and Marketing’ Grant Pascoe. On Linked In Pascoe’s title is ‘Mayoral Committee Member : Social Development and Special Projects’ for the City, while on Twitter his ‘Bio’ says he is the ‘Executive Mayoral Committee Member for Tourism, Events and Marketing’. Given that Pascoe holds the Cape Town Tourism purse strings, one would have thought that the tourism body would get his title correct.

One wonders what the Cape Town Tourism PR and Communication Manager was smoking and/or drinking when writing this shockingly poor media release, how it could have been approved by her bosses, and how its PR company Rabbit in a Hat Communications could have been happy to distribute it!  It is riddled with factual and grammatical errors, and is an embarrassment to the city’s tourism marketing, which is funded by the City of Cape Town to the value of R40 million, coming from ratepayers’ monies!  Furthermore, Cape Town Tourism has a very poor grasp of market research in general, and in questionnaire design and research interpretation specifically, and therefore any results from its member polls should be evaluated with the greatest of care.  A link provided in the release, which is intended to allow one to see the results of the survey, goes to a Cape Town Partnership release, and not to the survey! Mrs Helmbold is on maternity leave for the next few months, but is quoted in the media release.

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

Tourism Seasonality in the Cape: it’s getting worse!

Every year Cape Town Tourism and Cape Town Routes Unlimited, both bodies tasked to market Cape Town, tell the tourism industry that Seasonality is a problem unique to the Western Cape, and that they have planned events for the quieter months and scheduled more advertising, to address the problem which swallows up in the winter months the income generated in the summer months.

To evaluate Seasonality for our Whale Cottages, we went back to our Occupancy information as far back as 2007, and found interesting trends:

*   Occupancy for Whale Cottage Camps Bay was at 72 % on average in 2007, 70 % in 2008, and dropped every year, to 63 % in 2009, 56% in 2010 and 41% this year to date.

*   During the period May – August, the Cape winter season, Whale Cottage Camps Bay Occupancy declined year on year, from 54 % in 2007, to 45% in 2009 and 2010, to 28% this year, an almost 50 % decline in Occupancy between 2007 and 2011!  Despite an average Occupancy of 70 % over the World Cup, from 11 June – 11 July last year, the World Cup had no effect on 2010 Winter Occupancy, as the good June and July performance was negated by a sharp decline in Occupancy before (19 % in May, being the lowest Occupancy ever in the five year period) and after (36% in August last year, vastly down compared to previous years) the 2010 Soccer World Cup.

*   Every individual month has seen a decline in Occupancy for Whale Cottage Camps Bay over the past five years, February 2011 showing the least decline in Occupancy (88% in 2011, our best month by far this year, compared to 97% in 2007), and September 2011 showing the most drastic Occupancy decline (28% in 2011, compared to 60 % in 2007).

*  These trends apply to Whale Cottage Hermanus and Whale Cottage Franschhoek too, both towns having seen Occupancy in 2007 (on average around 50%) halve this year for the period January – September.

*   Hermanus recovers from Seasonality more quickly in winter, due to the arrival of the Southern Right whales from May.  However, in the last two winters the average Occupancy was around 10% (despite the World Cup, which made no impact on business to this town), compared to 40 %  on average in 2007).

*   Franschhoek shows a similar Seasonality decline, but is at a far lower level in winter, dropping by half from 16 % in 2007, to 7%  this winter.  The World Cup made no impact on business.  The village has seen a decline in the number and size of weddings, and despite an increased activity in hosting events, which fill up the guest houses for the two days of the event, the remaining 28 days remain close to empty!   The trend is for a vastly reduced Occupancy, from 41 % on average in 2007, to 13% on average this year, for the period January – September.  September has been the month with the most drastic decline in Occupancy in the past five years, but Occupancy declined consistently year on year in each of the months.

*   The Occupancy trends reflect the changed tourism pattern, with more international tourists staying in Cape Town, and not travelling to inland towns to stay over, doing a day trip to Hermanus and Franschhoek at best.  Cape Town Routes Unlimited is responsible for marketing the Western Cape, and it appears to have failed in its work, if our figures are taken as a benchmark.  It shocked me to hear that Cape Town Routes Unlimited has lost both its Marketing Executives David Frandsen and Itumeleng Pooe, and that all marketing is now handled by the CEO Calvyn Gilfellan.  Cape Town Tourism’s Marketing Manager Velma Corcoran has only been in the job for a month, and has not made her mark in any way.  She has no tourism marketing experience specifically, and no marketing experience generally.

Not having a firm statistic as to the contribution of UK tourists to our Whale Cottage business, we checked our country of origin statistics over the past years.  This source market has represented as much as 53 % (November 2007) of our bookings over the past five years, but the average has been at around 33%.  It is this percentage of bookings which we will miss this summer, as bookings from the UK are extremely rare, due to the economic woes of the United Kingdom.  German bookings for Camps Bay have represented as much as 24 % (December 2007), but have seen a steady decline over the past five years, averaging at about 10 – 15 %. Our forward bookings show a strong increase in German bookings for this summer. Not surprising is that the proportion of South African bookings has climbed steadily, as we have lost international business, and this may also be due to our Whale Cottages still charging affordable 2007 rates, and discounting rates by close to half in the winter months.

A Carte Blanche programme on Sunday highlighted the tourism crisis.  Portfolio of Places CEO Liz Westby-Nunn spoke about 52 of her client establishments having closed down in the past year.  She has been in business for about 25 years, and business is so bad that she has consolidated her three Portfolio Guides into one, and has dropped her advertising rate by about 50%, just to hold on to her clients.  Mrs Westby-Nunn has been a feisty business person, who took 20 % advertising rate increases year on year in the past.  Clive Bennett, Managing Director of the One&Only Cape Town, said that “We aren’t seeing growth we should be seeing, and you couple that with the surplus number of beds, sadly there are going to be closures”. Bennett added that the recession had hit South Africa post-World Cup. Shamwari’s Tom Jager said that business for them has seen ‘a big drop’.  SA Tourism’s Chief Marketing Officer Roshene Singh said she would look at the impact of the tourism industry’s poor performance on jobs at the end of this year.  SATSA President Heather Guiterrez was controversial in stating that blaming the recession is a convenient excuse:  “There is 4% tourism growth within tourism worldwide, and we’re not seeing it in South Africa. In fact, we are seeing a huge decline of tourism into South Africa”.  She blames the lack of post-World Cup marketing for the current status.  ‘South Africa went dead. People don’t go to a country that goes dead’, she said.  SA Tourism defended its work, stating that April had seen a 7,5 % increase on the year before.  Ms Guiterrez said that SA Tourism does not have enough marketing money to market South Africa on international TV, and this was confirmed by Ms Singh, stating that their marketing budget is minuscule relative to their main competitors.  Mrs Westby-Nunn was critical of the official arrival statistics, stating that the 8 million figure should be closer to 1 million. The tourism players interviewed said that the impact of the decline in tourism is its effect on job creation, the target of 250000 having been set, and would not be achievable.  Both Bennet and Protea Hotels CEO Arthus Gillis called for more flexibility in the airlines, allowing charter flights, and making SAA the tourism loss leader, to bring as many tourists to the country as possible.  Gillis says his business is predominantly focusing on domestic tourists, being their ‘saviour’.

We received the following response to our latest WhaleTales newsletter from Herbert Henrich, a fellow guest house owner in Franschhoek, and he hits the nail on the head in confirming the poor state of the guest house industry: “Thank you for your most comprehensive ‘Tales’ and the detailed information contained therein. For one, like me, sitting on the hospitality industry outer parameters, your reports provide much insight in what would remain obscure otherwise. Our business suffers. The reasons are probably a) global recession and b) lack of exciting promotion of South Africa as a special tourist destination. The most remote parts of the world are being offered to potential  tourists on TV almost daily. Very little – if anything – from the RSA. But promotion alone will not re-instate what once was a flourishing industry. There will still be the economic millstone around the consumers’ neck. Hence, business will shrink and establishments will close down, bringing about further lack of income and loss of jobs. Our operational cost go up, however, irrespective of the business slowing down. Municipal rates, levies, electricity, taxes – you name it, will be collected whether there is income or not. I would suggest that it is time that the government will consider easing up on us somewhat. Why do we still have to pay inflated rates for business premises which bring no business? Is it not time the government supports those who do not close down in order not to increase the number of job-less ? Those who actually subsidize the government rather than the other way around ? I think the hospitality industry, which has no alternative replacement business option , should make a united appeal to provincial and national government departments to reduce their every increasing fiscal demands and allow some time to regroup and allow the business to come back to some sort of reasonable level”.

We once again call on Cape Town Tourism and Cape Town Routes Unlimited to involve our industry in utilizing our information as a predictor of tourism activity for the season ahead, and to focus on the domestic market, in getting them to Cape Town.  Our tourists are not on Twitter and Facebook, in our experience, and need good old-fashioned advertising and articles in newspapers and magazines to attract them to our beautiful Cape.

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