Tag Archives: security

Restaurant Revisit: Franschhoek Kitchen at Holden Manz introduces fresh new Chef Julia Hattingh!

Holden Manz Chef Julia Hattingh Whale Cotatge PortfolioJulia Hattingh is the fourth chef at Franschhoek Kitchen since Holden Manz bought the previously named Klein Genot wine estate, and it was renamed after the owners’ surnames.  She is a breath of fresh air, and the restaurant will attract back customers, as Chef Julia settles in and takes the restaurant to a new level.

Security is stricter now, one having to fill in a sheet at the boom, but friendly.   One walks through the downstairs tasting room to get to the upstairs restaurant, and I chose the smaller room with the fireplace. Front of House Manager Cobi Bosch is new, and he and I did not gel at all.  He previously worked at Rhapsody’s at Cape Town International and in Bloemfontein.  I knew that Manager Wayne Buckley would pop in, and I did want to meet Chef Julia, which made me stay.  Cobi also served as the waiter on Monday.   He recommended to a neighbouring table what his favourite dishes are, in guiding them what to order (they ordered a cheese platter to share in the end), but did not offer me this service.   He brought two wine lists, one with Holden Manz wines, and the other with wines from their ‘friends’, being other wine estates in Franschhoek and one in Stellenbosch, telling me that the Chardonnay on the list was sold out already.  He seemed most put out when I requested butter instead of the bottles of Willow Creek extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar, for the slices of olive oil bread which he had brought to the table. Continue reading →

International Tourism scenarios for 2014!

Tourism 2014 trendsAmerican tourism consultant and speaker Dr Peter Tarlow has made some predictions for the tourism industry in 2014.   He believes that not much will change relative to 2013, but has identified some trends that could impact on the tourism industry globally, as reported by eTurboNews:

1.  The economic status of the world in the past few years has placed greater emphasis on the ‘middle class‘, representing the largest number of travellers.

2.   Middle class travellers tend to be more forgiving of tourism mistakes and less perfect service.  They are however sensitive to economic changes, and the cost of credit in particular.  Interest rate increases makes the use of credit more expensive, and can affect travel. As they live on a budget, middle class travellers will be affected by their expectation of taxes and other major cost increases.  Stock market trends influence confidence, even if the middle class does not own shares.

3.   The upper class is more demanding of service when travelling, and less reliant on and believing in marketing.

4.  Security remains an important issue, and global events, such as the Winter Olympics, the Summer Olympics, and the 2014 World Cup will create security challenges, including terrorism, for Brazil in particular.

5.   Airlines will increasingly be disliked, as their service diminishes, as their rates increase, as they merge to save costs, as they Continue reading →

Wine business is boom-ing in Franschhoek!

About a year ago I wrote an e-mail to Franschhoek Wine Valley, as the tourism association is now called, and fed back my experiences about the off-putting security practices of wine estates in Franschhoek as far as their booms are concerned.   Yesterday I went for a drive to some of Franschhoek’s leading wine estates with my colleague, and this is what we experienced :

*   Allee Bleue – having had a history of tight security and rude boom operators, new GM Wolfgang Leyrer turned the security staff at the boom into his ‘welcome committee’, dressing them into smart blue shirts, black pants and blue bow-tie, even if they work for outsourced Centurion security company.  The boom is usually open, or is opened immediately, and it wins the top boom award for professionalism and friendliness.

*   Solms Delta – the boom off the R45 was closed on our arrival, and we had to hoot for it to be opened, but mercifully there was no sign-in procedure.  Thereafter the gates are open at Solms Delta itself.  I am surprised at the variability in the security – on many days the boom is open anyway, on weekends in particular, and one wonders why their boom is not open during the opening hours of the wine estate.

*   L’Ormarins has a non-negotiable security person, and one may not pass go until something/anything is filled into the security sheet.  This is more important than anything else at this wine estate, one gets the feeling.   They are absolutely consistent in applying the rule!

*   Graham Beck uses Peaceforce Security.  I have experienced variability in its boom operations in the past, the previous time the security guard sitting in the window of his ‘hut’, but facing outgoing traffic, so that we had to hoot for him to open.  There was no signing in then.   Even when he saw us, we had to hoot, so that he could press the button to let us out.  Yesterday we had to hoot to get him to come to the car, and we had to sign in.   He was signing in someone else when we wanted to leave, and he arrogantly let us wait until he finished with the sign-in before he let us out!  Once again, the attitude of this boom operator does not reflect the amazing welcome we received inside the tasting room, and does not reflect the Graham Beck ethos.

*   La Motte has mostly had an open boom since Pierneef à La Motte opened in September, or one could tell the boom operator that one had a booking at the restaurant, and then one was allowed in immediately.  On Sunday I observed the first ever signing-in, with the resultant queue building up, not an ideal situation for guests running late, as I was, and it was just a further hold up.  I smiled sweetly at the security man from Xone, gave him my name, and asked him to fill in my details, and he obliged.  When I arrived yesterday, the security person Inge was chatting to a person in a security company vehicle quite far from the boom, and she did not acknowledge my presence at all.   I thought they were her colleagues, as they were chatting.  I hooted, and overtook this vehicle.  She ignored me completely.  When she came to my car, she gave me a mouthful, and referred to me breaking the rules on Sunday (I had not dealt with her nor seen her then), and gave me the rudest “welcome” of the day, and almost put me off driving inside.   Her interaction with me was completely the opposite to every friendly interaction I have ever experienced at La Motte.  She is an absolute liability to the La Motte brand, and does not share this wine estate’s promise of “a culture of excellence”!

*   Maison is always open and welcoming, although it was closed yesterday.  Its gate is closed when the tasting room is closed, and there is no sign-in procedure at all, and this is a reflection of the friendly welcome one receives at this wine estate.  One hopes that it stays this way.

*   Grande Provence has a security presence via ADT at its entrance, but has no boom at all, and the security staff is a token presence.

*  Boekenhoutskloof has no security at all.  When the tasting room is closed, the gate is closed.  On weekdays the gate is welcomingly open during its operating hours. 

*   Holden Manz is the newest wine estate to be boom-ing, and ADT operates the security.  I mainly visit here at night, to eat at the Franschhoek Kitchen, and they should see the car lights approaching from their ‘hut’.  I have not once had them proactively open the boom or even walk to it!   Last night I was allowed to drive in without signing in when I said that I was going to the restaurant.  On my way out the security person was at the boom already, and opened it to allow me to drive out without stopping.  I suspect that Chef Bjorn Dingemans had done the necessary to achieve this service efficiency.

One wonders why some Franschhoek wine farms feel the need for security, and others don’t.   Other than Allee Bleue and Solms Delta,  it appears that the boom-ing Franschhoek wine estates do not realise how irritating it is to have to sign in.  I scribbled my name in all instances, and no security person stopped me from entering.   Most have security cameras anyway, and will capture on film any attempted criminal activity.  In all cases, other than Solms Delta, security is outsourced, and not unsurprisingly, the outsourced security staff tend to be the rude, arrogant or inefficient ones, with the exception of Allee Bleue.

My advice to Franschhoek (and other) wine farms : let your customers enter as easily as possible.  Make your security staff your ambassadors, guiding the visitors directionally as to where they want to be, and use them as part of your PR program.  Train outsourced security staff in customer interaction, and the values you and your wine estate stand for.   Make the arrival as welcoming and efficient as possible – if you have to have a boom, get the security guys out of their ‘huts’ and let them stand at the boom, to open or close the boom before the cars stop at it and have to hoot.  Then business on your wine estate should boom! 

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

Tourism Grading Council apologises to accommodation industry

The recent attempt by the Tourism Grading Council of South Africa to completely overhaul its grading assessment criteria, and then to withdraw most of the proposed changes due to the outcry from the accommodation industry, is the biggest PR gaffe of the body that has been tasked by South African Tourism to set accommodation quality standards.  The Tourism Grading Council’s charming Chief Quality Assurance Officer Thembi Kunene admitted that an error had been made in presenting the first draft to the industry.

We wrote recently about the final decisions the Tourism Grading Council made, relative to the draft proposal, in its new accommodation grading assessment criteria.   At a presentation to the Cape Town accommodation industry at the Cape Town International Convention Centre earlier this week, Ms Kunene was commendably honest in her feedback about the effect the draft proposals had, and that the potential loss of many accommodation establishments from the grading system led to a rethink, and a delay by about four months, in introducing the new assessment criteria.  

The Tourism Grading Council was criticised for only setting up the meeting in Cape Town in November, the city with the largest number of graded establishments in the country, when it had done presentations in Hermanus and Franschhoek, for example, in September already.   The Tourism Grading Council is clearly sensing a concern, and is doing a road show throughout the country during November, to reassure its clients.   The only problem was that the meeting was set for 8h00 – 12h00, the busiest time of day for accommodation establishments – the smaller they are, the more likely it is that the owners are hands-on in their establishments in making breakfast and checking out their guests, and therefore were unable to attend the meeting.  Ironically, an establishment owner said that the only reason why he was able to attend was because he had no guests in his guest house!

What is not understandable, despite the fact that Ogilvy PR handles the public relations for the Tourism Grading Council, is that no PR campaign has been launched to repair the damage caused to its image amongst its clients through the draft assessment criteria document, which was sent to all star-graded properties.  No current star-graded establishment has received any communication to explain that the bulk of the proposed controversial assessment criteria have been scrapped.  Assessors also seem to have been overwhelmed by the controversial process and the number of calls they had to field about the proposed changes, that they themselves have not been proactive in informing their clients about the dramatic turnaround in the new grading assessment criteria.

A sensitive issue is that the Tourism Grading Council has chosen a new formula for the calculation of its annual fees, by weighting the average room rate and number of rooms to come up with the new fee.  In an example provided for a 2-star guest house in Soweto, the fee increase was shown to be 10 %, whereas it was a far larger increase for a larger higher-starred guest house.  The fee increase in excess of the inflation rate attracted strong criticism amongst the attendees, when accommodation establishments have frozen their rates, some as far back as 2007 already.  The fact that a breakfast was provided was raised by Ms Kunene, as if the establishment owners should have been grateful for the mediocre Convention Centre breakfast, consisting of fruit, cereals, yoghurt, rolls and cold meats, and that it should justify the fee increase!   Ironically, Ms Kunene talked about her new iPad, and one wonders why such a R9000 purchase was necessary!   Each attendee also received a gift on departure, unusable to most and thus a wasted expenditure.   One also wonders why KPMG was contracted to handle the revision of the grading criteria assessment, and how much they were paid, for a proposal that has dented the image of the Tourism Grading Council, and with it that of SA Tourism!

We have written previously that technically very little has changed in the assessment criteria.  It was interesting to hear which of the proposed assessment criteria changes attracted the largest industry criticism:

*  airconditioning – an “air temperature control system” is now acceptable as an alternative to airconditioning, but must have adjustable controls, to be set for the level of comfort of the guest.  

*   dinner service – whilst the criteria say that such a service must be made “available”, it is meant that one must make bookings at restaurants for guests, or allow Mr Delivery access to the establishment for food delivery

*   room service and hours – this only applies to hotels now

*   statutory requirements – each province has different requirements for rezoning, trading etc, and therefore a full list had been supplied.   Now the directive is that the applicable provincial requirements must be adhered to.

*   armchairs – this had led to a debate of the exact definition of such chairs, and therefore the criterion was redefined to be a ‘seating space’ per person

*   shower over bath – a glass partition must be made available for 4 and 5-star establishments

Lesser issues in terms of feedback received related to security requirements (scrapped), room dimensions (scrapped), size of TV screen and initial directive that the TV be a flatscreen one (now dropped), down pillows (scrapped), master switch next to bed (scrapped), wardrobe size (scrapped), number of basins in 5-star bathrooms (scrapped), size and placement of mirrors (scrapped), number of clothes hangers (scrapped), breakfast duration (scrapped), and private toilet in open-plan bathrooms (criterion retained).

Another issue was the application form – yes, no matter how long one has been graded, one has to register from scratch.  Here a number of onerous and off-putting information requirements led to further controversy.  They were justified by the Tourism Grading Council as being necessary if one wants to offer accommodation to Government officials.  These information requirements have now been dropped, yet establishments have not been informed of this recent change. 

Whilst the Tourism Grading Council demonstrated its willingness to listen to its customers, the graded establishments of South Africa, its image is severly dented, and it needs to regain the trust and respect of thousands of graded establishments who are considering not renewing their grading or who were inconvenienced by the drama surrounding the attempted changes to the assessment criteria. 

Ms Kunene called me the morning after the presentation, to personally thank me for my contribution to the meeting during question time.  She impressed with her openness and willingness to hear her customers, and requested that I assist the Tourism Grading Council in spreading the word about the fact that barely any changes have in fact been made in the new grading assessment criteria, which we have already done through our previous blog post.

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