Tag Archives: Place Marketing

How festive will the Festive Season be for Cape Town and Western Cape?

November 25, 2013

City of Cape Town Councillor for Tourism, Events, and Marketing, Grant Pascoe, has a lot of image polishing to do after he and his Tourism, Events, and Marketing Directorate were in the dog box, having to undergo an embarrassing forensic audit recently. It is annoying to read his misleading optimistic view of the Festive Season, clearly without substantiation. The same applies to a media release from Cape Town Tourism, making projections based on poor market research techniques.

The Councillor brags in an article in the City of Cape Town’s weekly newsletter, just two days after the Cape Town Tourism media release was dispatched, that Cape Town ‘is gearing up for a bumper festive season‘, undefined and unsubstantiated, adding that the City plans to position itself as the ‘Events Capital of Africa’, a surprise given that no events have been created since the Councillor established his Directorate headed by Anton Groenewald. In fact the Directorate, with an annual budget of R500 million, has not shown any sign of tourism marketing action, other than laying on some small scale soccer matches at the Cape Town Stadium, a sport which Pascoe personally is particularly fond of! Groenewald ironically was quoted recently in saying that Cape Town has lost out on a number of events due Continue reading →

Tourism spend in Cape Town grew by 5,6% p.a. since 2009, claims (misleading) Grant Thornton study!

September 22, 2013

It is interesting to see how Councillor Grant Pascoe, City of Cape Town Mayoral Committee member for Tourism, Events, and Marketing, has interpreted the results of a Grant Thornton survey of ‘spend on tourism in Cape Town‘, to obtain maximum PR spin out of the survey results.

While the Grant Thornton study shows that the average rate of growth between 2009 and 2012 was 5,6 % per annum, there were increases and decreases in revenue in this period, the revenue generated having peaked in 2010 at R16 billion, growing from R12,4 billion in 2009 to R14,6 billion in 2012, a City of Cape Town media release reveals. Fascinating is that the value of the tourism industry in Cape Town in 2009 was quantified at R 17,3 billion, when the City announced the appointment of the consultancy in conducting the study. Now the 2009 value has been reduced by R5 billion – could this have been done to make the tourism industry show growth instead of a loss in revenue over the 2009 – 2012 period?!

The tourism consultancy was contracted to conduct a three year study on the Continue reading →

City of Cape Town Marketing Department shows its poor marketing skills in ‘Hello Festive Season’!

December 11, 2012

The free magazine ‘Hello Festive Season 2012/2013‘, dropped into our post box, attracted my attention for the endless pages sponsored by the City of Cape Town, in what is intended as a publication to help one decide where to celebrate Christmas and New Year, and where to spend time during the summer holidays in Cape Town, bearing the subtitle ‘the ultimate lifestyle guide‘! It is the worst possible boring representation of Cape Town, the sponsor pages having been compiled by the City of Cape Town’s new Marketing department, and is not a ‘lifestyle guide’ at all!.

Rory Viljoen, Director of the City of Cape Town Place Marketing, as he likes to call his department, comes from Distell and Coca Cola, so it is hard to imagine that he could be responsible for such nonsense information to be presented in a publication that is unlikely to reach every Cape Town ratepayer or services payer, only 16500 copies having been printed, I was told by Hello Cape Town Magazine Marketing Consultant Jessica Nosworthy. She also told me that it is the third year that the City of Cape Town has advertised in the publication.

The first of the twenty eight City of Cape Town pages in the seventy page magazine covers ‘Investing in Cape Town’, with a sub-heading of ‘Investment Opportunities‘ and markets Wesgro, but the content does not list any investment opportunities, being solely focused on listing the services that Wesgro can offer investors, hardly of interest to Capetonians. This is followed under the same heading by a feature on Cape Town Activa, described as a ‘world-class ecosystem for entrepreneurs and job-seekers that will transform Cape Town into a city that is open for business and attractive to outside investors‘, but it does not explain what exactly it does, other than it being a lobby platform for small business owners. It clearly was extracted from a media statement, referring to ‘yesterday’ in announcing the launch of Cape Town Activa, but not edited for the publication! Descriptions are provided for the CIty’s plans to develop Cape Town until 2040; to redevelop the Athlone power station; to upgrade the Company Gardens, The Durbanville Rose Garden, the Westridge Gardens in Mitchell’s Plain, and Maynardville in Wynberg; the completion of the Green Point Athletic Stadium; Cape Town’s appointment as World Design Capital 2014; a newly introduced Travel SMART program to encourage local residents to share driving to work, to cycle, to walk, to use the MyCiti Bus, and find any other way to save fuel, and thereby keep vehicles off the roads; a new Smart Living handbook, which is available for residents to reduce their impact on the environment through their usage of electricity and water, handling of their garbage, by planting indigenous gardens, reducing the size or removing their lawns, by installing solar water heating, etc; and the Solid Waste Management Department encourages residents to reduce their waste, to recycle or re-use their waste. Most of these descriptions are technical and not written in a citizen-friendly style. Conspicuous by its absence is the City’s R38 million annual funding of tourism via Cape Town Tourism.

At an official cost of R18000 per full page full colour advertisement, the sponsorship could have cost the City of Cape Town, and thus its ratepayers, more than R 500000, a complete waste of marketing money.

I had requested more information about the distribution areas for the magazine from Jessica, as she was the only person in the company answering her phone, and she promised to send more details. Five minutes later her boss Ari Spinner called back, demanding a meeting to hand over the details, sounding paranoid about the information falling into the hands of a ‘nasty competitor’, should I be interested in advertising in the magazine. He refused to e-mail any details, and rudely told me that my English was not understandable when I had to repeat my postal address a number of times for him to post copies of his publication, when his heavy Greek accent makes it hard to understand him.

If this is the calibre of Viljoen’s marketing skills for Cape Town, the tourism industry should be severely concerned about the City of Cape Town having taken the role of Destination Marketing from Cape Town Tourism, and having set itself up to do the marketing for our beautiful city! Instead of communicating with its public as intended, the City of Cape Town has demonstrated its lack of marketing skills, and its ability to waste R½ million of ratepayers’ monies! The publisher has misled his readers, as there is barely any ‘lifestyle‘ information in the ‘guide’, other than a listing of clubs and bars!

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

New City of Cape Town Place Marketing Director Rory Viljoen to put Cape Town on the map!

October 29, 2012

While many in the Cape Town tourism industry are shaking their heads about yet another change at Cape Town Tourism, the City of Cape Town taking away the role of Destination Marketing from Cape Town Tourism four years after having given it to the tourism body, one can be grateful for two things: that a change can only be better than the little and ineffectual marketing being done by Cape Town Tourism, and that one could not wish for a better Marketing Director for brand ‘Cape Town’ than Rory Viljoen, Place Marketing Director in the new Tourism, Events and Marketing (TEAM) Directorate of the City of Cape Town.

It was a bumpy start to meeting Rory, who has only been working for the City for ten weeks, and is still suffering temporary staff in setting up his appointments. It was third time lucky, despite a time error, to finally meet him and Daylin Mitchell, the Executive Support Officer for Councillor Grant Pascoe, the Mayoral Committee member for Tourism, Events, and Marketing, in Rory’s office in the TELKOM Tower adjacent to the Civic Centre.

Rory gave little away in the interview, instead turning the tables by asking what should be done in marketing Cape Town. We discussed the impact of Seasonality on our businesses, and how we have been made promises in this regard by both Cape Town Tourism and the ex-Cape Town Routes Unlimited (now amalgamated into Wesgro); sharing information with the industry; generating coverage in traditional media locally and internationally with Social Media support (and not the other way around, as practised by Cape Town Tourism); Events in the winter months; addressing the lack of airline seats from Johannesburg to Cape Town on Fridays; the extreme airfares to get to Cape Town from international destinations; the confusion that has resulted amongst the tourism industry about the City’s new destination marketing directorate which some mistakenly seeing it to be Wesgro’s new marketing department; the reduced bookings via Cape Town Tourism’s tourism bureaus as tourists are booking most requirements on-line, before they leave or on their iPads; the ‘Mommy’ Tweeting by Cape Town Tourism CEO Mariette du Toit-Helmbold; the role of the V&A Waterfront in the tourism portfolio of Cape Town; the controversial trip by ten Cape Town Tourism and City of Cape Town executives to Turkey (clearly a sensitive issue, judging by Rory’s body language when the topic arose – he was not part of the delegation); the renewal of Mrs Helmbold’s contract as CEO next year; and much more.

While Rory has chosen to call his portfolio ‘Place Marketing’, he said it is just another name for Destination Marketing. His private sector experience in marketing Distell’s brands in Africa and Europe, as well as having been South African Marketing Director of Coca Cola during the 2006 and 2010 World Cup soccer championships, shadowing the Beijing and Vancouver World Cups, and his involvement in the European Championships played in Germany and Switzerland, gives him an excellent insight in hosting events, and in creating marketing linkages. He said that he does not know the Marketing Budget yet (we have seen that the Tourism, Events and Marketing Directorate, headed by Anton Groenewald, has a budget of R500 million per annum!), as he needs to finalise his Strategic Plan, translate that into the Marketing Budget, and then appoint the staff to execute his Marketing Strategy. He said that he likes to work in an organised manner, step by step, ‘every chapter must stand like a book’, he said. His biggest challenge is to find a measurement of success for his department, currently believing that arrivals at Cape Town International would be the most reliable measurement of marketing success at this stage, despite Cape Town International Service Standards Manager and outgoing Cape Town Tourism Chairman Ian Bartes warning that there would be no growth in tourism arrivals via our local airport in the next two years.

While Daylin is active on Twitter, Rory and Mr Groenewald are not. Currently Digital and Social Media Marketing of Cape Town rests with Cape Town Tourism in their new mandate of only focusing on Tourism Marketing (with Visitor Services), but Rory indicated that they are looking to appoint a strong Media person, who will be responsible for Media Relations, Digital Marketing, Social Media Marketing, and the writing of Speeches. One can assume that the Digital Marketing of Cape Town will move from Cape Town Tourism to the City of Cape Town once the position has been filled.

It will be interesting to see how brand ‘Cape Town’ will be packaged, with a new logo, a pay-off line, and an extensive communication campaign to support new events, the focus being to make the Cape Town Stadium commercially viable by hosting more events there, and ultimately to attract more visitors to Cape Town.

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

WhaleTales Blog by Chris von Ulmenstein

Blog about Restaurants and Tourism in Cape Town and the Western Cape