Tag Archives: Pieter Ferreira

WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 24/25 September

WhaleTalesTourism, Food, and Wine news headlines

*   Western Cape Tourism Minister Alan Winde has slammed the national Minister of Home Affairs Malusi Gigaba for the Immigration Regulations, at Public Hearings on their impact on the tourism industry held today and which continue tomorrow.  The media release from the Minister’s office says that ‘… Home Affairs had stuck the band-aid far from the wound: It became immediately clear to all that tests had not been done into the impact of these rules on law-abiding businesses and private citizens, versus those who do defy the rules. While the former are being pushed away, it appears the latter are unaffected. I have called on the National Minister, Mr Malusi Gigaba, to retract his new rules in toto until a  full investigation into their impact has been conducted, and until such time as we have the systems in place to back them up. He also needs to find the right mechanisms to address our problems’.  The cost to the economy of the Regulations is R10 billion and 21000 jobs, and contradict efforts to grow the tourism industry, he added.  The call-centre and film industries are severely effected too.   (received via media release from Minister Winde’s office)

*   Four Nobel Laureates have cancelled their trip to Cape Town to attend next month’s World Summit of Nobel Laureates, in reaction to the Department of Home Affairs refusing to provide the Dalai Lama with a visa to attend the Summit. The Continue reading →

Noma back as top World’s 50 Best Restaurants! The Test Kitchen Best in Africa and ranked 48th!

World's 50 Best Restaurants logoThe eagerly awaited 12th The World’s 50 Best Restaurant Awards was held last night at The Guildhall in London, and the Top 50 Restaurants were announced. Restaurants ranked 51st – 100th were listed on the Awards website, which crashed just after the Awards ceremony!

The initiative of Restaurant magazine in the UK, and using 900 judges from around the world, a total of 6552 votes were cast to vote for the world’s best restaurants.  The world was divided into 26 regions, chaired by an expert for that region.  Tamsin Snyman heads the Africa panel of 36 members, who had to eat at 4 local as well as at 3 international restaurants to cast their vote.  No score is required – the vote is purely for the best restaurants they ate at, and must be presented in ranked order.  Every year 10 panelists step down per region, to be replaced by new ones.   For the first time in seven years Snyman did not attend, for family reasons.

The biggest surprise was that Noma in Copenhagen went back to its number one Continue reading →

WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 18 – 21/4

WhaleTalesTourism, Food, and Wine news headlines

*   CNN has included Cape Town as one of the Best Easter egg hunts around the world, in the company of London, New York, Miami, Vienna, Washington, France, Toronto, and Sydney.  The hunt for the treasure chest of Easter eggs on Table Mountain was guided by clue cards handed out by Mad Hatters Tea Party characters.

*   Fourteen travel bloggers, two from South Africa, will form part of a #MeetSouthAfrica blog campaign by SA Tourism, the bloggers travelling throughout our country and blogging about their journey, culminating in INDABA, the travel expo in Durban in early May.

*   The Banking Ombudsman has reported that 23% of the almost 5000 complaints received in the past year related to ATMs, the number of such complaints close to doubling from the year before, reports The New Age.  About 40% of the Continue reading →

WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 11 October

WhaleTalesTourism, Food, and Wine news headlines

*  SAA and Boeing are collaborating on a biofuels project, to create a ‘sustainable aviation biofuel supply chain‘, making SAA the first airline in Africa to become environmentally sustainable.

*   The new Cape Town cruise liner terminal should be completed in two years, and will be beneficial for tourism.

*   Despite the European air controller strike having been called off for yesterday, the French air controllers did commence their strike yesterday, affecting flights to/from France.

*   Hotel king Sol Kerzner has announced the development of a Continue reading →