Tag Archives: Thompson Holidays

WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 1/2 November

WhaleTalesTourism, Food, and Wine news headlines

*   Despite the disaster in Cape Town harbour earlier this week, our country has a lucrative future as far as cruise tourism goes.  Nine cruise ships have scheduled stops off our coast for 2015, in Cape Town, Durban, Richard’s Bay, Port Elizabeth, and East London, a 70% increase in cruise liner passengers.   A number of the cruise ships are returning to the country, after previous visits.  The Queen Mary 2 will return for a second visit next year, and the Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth will visit in 2016.  Vital to the expansion of cruise tourism is world-class terminals in ports, and Cape Town’s inefficiency as far as Customs staff goes was in the spotlight this week.  Cape Town is one of the most popular stops in the region, for American tourists in particular.

*   National Minister of Tourism Derek Hanekom will lead a local delegation representing our tourism industry to World Travel Market (WTM) in London this coming week, one of the largest (after ITB in Berlin) tourism trade exhibitions in the world.  More than 50000 tourism players are likely to attend WTM.  The Minister said: ‘The WTM is one of the premier events where South Africa engages with the global travel trade. Besides maintaining excitement about our destination, and all that we have to offer, this platform is about doing business and growing international tourist arrivals to our country.  We will be promoting the variety of experiences we offer in South Africa, and build on our reputation as a unique, diverse, friendly and accessible destination‘.  The Minister will address a summit relating to mega-events and tourism at WTM, based on our country’s FIFA 2010 World Cup experience.

*   Due to a cracked silo storing 10000 tons of coal, Eskom has announced load-shedding from today onwards, which is Continue reading →

Cape Town tourism industry puts diverse Cape Town on show at Indaba 2013!

After huge protests about the poorly run Indaba 2012, Africa’s top tourism and travel exhibition appears to have improved its organisation, and has promised a larger number of international trade visitors for Indaba 2013, taking place in Durban this weekend. SA Tourism has stated that 3000 international ‘buyers’ are attending, as are more than 13000 delegates, according to the Daily News. The majority of the delegates are involved with tourism product stands.  The country’s world heritage sites, culture, arts, design and music are on display, in addition to tourism products and services.  Cape Town’s tourism product appears unfocused and fragmented at Indaba!

Cape Town is being represented by the Western Cape government (its party headed by Alan Winde, Minister of Finance, Economic Development and Tourism); the ineffective Western Cape tourism and trade development agency Wesgro, which has not delivered at all in the first year of taking over the role of marketing tourism in the province; Cape Town Tourism, SA National Parks; the city’s Big Six attractions; the Cape Higher Education Consortium (what on earth are they doing at a tourism exhibition?); Cape Town World Design Capital 2014; and The City of Cape Town’s Arts and Culture department. Odd is that the City of Cape Town’s Tourism, Events and Marketing department is not represented in Durban.

Minister Winde said in a media statement that this year’s Indaba theme is ‘heritage and culture’, and that he ‘hoped’ that Robben Island and the San cultural landmarks of our province will be featured on the ‘South African Heritage Cultural Pavilion’, an odd comment as one would think that the Minister’s tourism department or his marketing arm Wesgro would have ensured their inclusion on the national stand! ‘Foreign visitors want to see more of what do (sic) and how we live, they want authentic local experiences. The Western Cape has a rich and diverse history and is home to iconic heritage sites such as Robben Island. The Western Cape Government is currently devising a cultural and heritage tourism strategy, which will be aligned with that of the national government. We are pleased the Tourism Indaba profiles this offering so prominently this year’, the Minister is quoted as saying!  Disappointing is that the Minister believes the misleading tourism information put out by Cape Town Tourism, in claiming that ‘the sector experienced its best ever summer season‘! The Minister clearly does not know that the last good summer season was in 2007!

The Western Cape has developed a new slogan which has not been seen before, but will be on show at Indaba, in an interactive stand showcasing the province’s top sights and activities, such as shark diving, the top restaurants, the Winelands, paragliding, and river rafting. ‘Adventurously yours…naturally ours’ appears contrived as a slogan, and there is no Western Cape branding in it!  The Western Cape World Heritage sites Robben Island, the Cape Floral Region, and the Richtersveld Cultural and Botanical Landscape will be on show on the Heritage Cultural Pavilion.

On the same Cape Town stand the City of Cape Town (according to the Cape Town Tourism media release but quoting Councillor Grant Pascoe, Mayoral Committee member for Tourism, Events, and Marketing, extensively) ‘will reflect Cape Town’s position (sic) as a value-for-money destination famed for sporting, entertainment and arts events but will also examine (sic) its focus on golf and adventure tourism, as well as Responsible Tourism‘, states yet another poorly written media release by Cape Town Tourism PR and Communications Manager Skye Grove (our underlining)!  The Councillor added that Cape Town will also focus on ‘the fastest growing markets’ (one wonders where he obtained this information, as Cape Town Tourism and Wesgro have not ever referred to them in the past) of Arts and Culture tourism, Muslim travel, youth travel, and sports tourism!

Cape Town Tourism has compiled a ‘Love Cape Town City Breaks‘ winter packages broadsheet in conjunction with Thompson Holidays, which will be handed out at the stand, on Mango flights, at Cape Town Tourism information centres, and at Cape Town events (not that there are any upcoming ones other than some soccer matches to keep the Cape Town Stadium alive, and to make Cape Town soccer lovers happy, the Liverpool friendly match against Ajax Cape Town just having been cancelled)!   Mariette du Toit-Helmbold, Cape Town Tourism CEO, said that her organisation’s role at Indaba is to represent ‘a place that is a hot bed (sic) of experiences, hidden gems and adventures‘, not even mentioning Brand Cape Town (our underlining)!

As tourism players we know that the presence of Cape Town and Wesgro at Indaba will do little to improve what is already a very bleak winter season, which cannot even be blamed on the rain, as there has been barely any to date!

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

Cape Town Tourism winter advertising campaign a marketing failure!

Last Sunday my eye caught a full page advertisement for Cape Town, in the Travel Weekly supplement of the Sunday Times. Its content, headline, media placement, and advertising frequency point to a marketing failure on behalf of the tourism industry of Cape Town.

At its AGM last year Cape Town Tourism announced with loud fanfare that its marketing would include a winter advertising campaign, in which its members could offer their specials, and that it was offering special packages via Thompsons Holidays.  One would have expected the campaign to run throughout winter, as we are not even midway through winter, and it is exceptionally quiet so far, worse than the same months last year, which was deemed a ‘tourism crisis’. Utilising Ogilvy Cape Town, one of the country’s top advertising agencies, one would have thought that the agency would have found a creative way to design the advertisement.

The advertisement looks like a dog’s breakfast, which should have made the art director cringe, being individual special offer ads placed higgledy piggledy within a template of a headline and a footer with contact details.  Even Lisa Clark, Ogilvy Cape Town Account Executive for Cape Town Tourism, admitted that the ad was ‘very busy’ – one wonders why she allowed her client to place such an ad, the agency being the custodian of its client’s brand image and reputation.

Our critique of the Cape Town Winter advertising campaign is the following:

1.  The headline ‘Come and discover why Cape Town warms up in winter’ does not communicate that Cape Town is ‘warm’ due to its specials, and does not change the perception most Johannesburgers have about Cape Town, namely that it is wet and cold all winter long!

2.   The footer refers to ‘weekend packages’ – it’s school holiday time now, so surely the Cape Town tourism industry would love to have tourists for longer than a weekend!

3.   Ironically, with the pay-off line ‘You don’t need a holiday, you need Cape Town’, the ad is placed in the travel supplement of the Sunday Times, filled mainly with ads for international destinations, not a place locals would be likely to look for local destination ads.

4.  The advertisers themselves appear to have little marketing understanding, some not having a website address and/or telephone number in their ads, for a call to action!  Cape Town Tourism itself is not branded in the ad, even though its contact details are provided, so one would not know which company is co-ordinating the deals and taking bookings for them.  Identity of the advertisers is also poor in most ads, the Table Mountain Cableway not being identifiable in its crass ad, trying to communicate far too much.  The exception is the classy looking ad for the V&A Waterfront’s ‘Master of the Trade Routes Culinary Challenge‘ ad, but it does not communicate that there are excellent restaurant special offers. Its website address is almost unreadable, being so small.

5.  Not all ads contain special offers, which is what the ad is meant to communicate

6.  The frequency of three insertions only, this ad having been the final one of the three, is ineffective in making any impact on the target market.

Cape Town Tourism may just as well not have bothered to run this advertising campaign, it being so badly done from a creative, production, and media perspective, reflecting how weak the marketing calibre of Cape Town Tourism is.  It reflects cutting marketing corners, cutting back on its marketing program which it shared with the industry earlier this year.  The tourism body receives R42 million a year from the City of Cape Town to market our city!

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