Tag Archives: Singapore

WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 9 July

WhaleTalesTourism, Food, and Wine news headlines

*   The South African Wine Tasting Championships 2014 will be held at the Hilton Hotel on 2 August.  Each participant will taste 50 wines, whereafter they must identify 10 wines tasted blind, out of the 50.  The 50 highest scoring participants will participate at the World Championships at Champagne Bollinger in October. (received via media release from Jean-Vincent Ridon)

*   The International Air Transportation Association (IATA) has warned that the new Immigration Regulations could affect the profitability of airlines serving South Africa, in that they ‘might stop people travelling‘, even if they were ‘well intentioned‘.

*   London is the most visited city in the world for the third time in four years, according to the MasterCard Global Destinations Cities Index.  The survey estimates that the city will receive 18,7 million visitors this year, beating Bangkok, which was ranked first last year.  Paris, Singapore, and Dubai also fall into the Top 5 visitor cities list. Continue reading →

World Travel Market Africa 2014: Day 1 huge vote of confidence in Cape Town’s tourism industry!

WTM AfricaI returned to my guest house all charged up after a full day spent at the Cape Town International Convention Centre yesterday, to attend World Travel Market (WTM) Africa, the first time ever that a travel and tourism exhibition of such a stature has been held in Cape Town.

World Travel Market has been held in London for years, and is the second largest travel and tourism exhibition in the world, after ITB in Berlin, and larger than Indaba, which is held in Durban.  At the press conference yesterday afternoon it was said that Reed Exhibitions must have had tremendous confidence in Africa generally and in Cape Town specifically,  to have brought the exhibition to our city, partnering with Thebe in hosting it.  One was surprised at the many stands that had been sold, not only to Cape Town and Western Cape tourism players, but also to national brands (including Durban Tourism, which was interesting, especially as it was not manned on Saturday!) as well as a host of international brands such as Lufthansa, Singapore, Berlin Tourismus & Kongress GmbH, Dubai, Malaysia Tourism Promotion Board, Turkey, Reunion Island, Seychelles, ZambiaWTM Africa Turkey Whale Cottage Portfolio Tourism Board, Namibia WTM Africa WhaleCrier Whale Cottage PortfolioTourism Board and Airports Company, Mozambique, and many more brands, there being about 150 stands in total.  Even the Whale Crier from Hermanus paid a visit!

The communication with WTM Africa had been efficient, attendees being invited to register in advance, so that one could attend for free, which must have led to the good attendance yesterday.  While the service at the registration desk could have been friendlier, it was efficient in general.  Other than visiting many of the exhibitors, and bumping into numerous tourism players on the floor, an important benefit was the interesting programme  of talks over the two days of the exhibition.   By the time I could get to the exhibition, at about 11h15, the talk on Mobile Apps was fully ‘occupied‘ with 100 attendees,  as one of the WTM Africa staff said, which meant that we were not let inside initially, for ‘health and safety reasons‘!  After calling for a senior Continue reading →

Colourful Cape Town in ‘Happy’ music video excellent marketing for our city!

Happy music video titlePharrell Williams’ song ‘Happy‘ is infectious, and on the playlist of radio stations like Kfm every day.  Now it has been honoured with a unique Cape Town inspired music video, by a team of five local filmmakers, who made it for free, and want it to go viral, and to be seen by as many people as possible (93000 views in the past two days already)!  It is fabulous free marketing for Cape Town!

Using the Cape Town World Design Capital 2014 colour yellow as its title page, which will bring it some brownie points, the Cape Town music video captures a 12 hour day.  It includes the Sea Point Promenade, Muizenberg beach, Athlone Stadium, a number of township and Cape Flats scenes,  colourful Bo-Kaap with minstrels, Charly’s Bakery, with the street art portrait of the late Nelson Mandela across the road, St George’s Mall, and Long Happy Cape Town SkaterStreet.

The music video was directed by Shamiel Soni and Tannan Woods, and directed by Nicky Priem.  Priem says of the ‘Happy‘ music video, and the reason for making it: ‘We are the most amazing city in the world.  I think it was important for us to showcase the Mother City’s diversity and beautiful people.  We all love the song and the message it portrays and I think the video helps unite our City. It gave us an Continue reading →

WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 8/9 March

WhaleTalesTourism, Food, and Wine news headlines

*   Wines of South Africa (WOSA) has announced that CapeWine 2015 will be held from 15 – 17 September 2015. (via Twitter)

*   Franschhoek resident Nolan Hoffman has won the 2014 Cape Argus Pick ‘n Pay Momentum Cycle Tour. (Via Twitter)

*   While online accommodation evaluations are much more responsibly handled, about half of travellers feel that a substantial part of accommodation reviews have been ‘manipulated‘, a Tourism professor told the travel industry at ITB, the international travel  expo which ended in Berlin this weekend.

*   The most child-friendly airports in the world, according to Travel News Weekly,  are Heathrow (number one on the list, and offers children play areas, a quiet room, and a game zone), Zürich (with child minders), Frankfurt (with boarding passes for teddies too!), Munich (with touch screen terminals to explain how an airport works, and German TV series shown), Singapore (with a Butterfly Garden, arcade games, a four storey slide, and internet terminals), and Chicago (with an interactive educational play area).

*   The flagship MCC Villiera Monro Brut 2008 won one of 20 Bacchus Trophies at the 16th Annual Taj Classic Wine Trophy Continue reading →