Tag Archives: Tony Ehrenreich

Hussar Grill Camps Bay Sweet Service and Tony Ehrenreich Sour Service Awards!

The Sweet Service Award goes to the Hussar Grill in Camps Bay, for recently hosting the guest houses and hotel concierges in Camps Bay to a complimentary lunch, to thank them for business sent their way in the past year.  The guest house lunch was an opportunity for the owners and managers of the accommodation establishments to connect, and to exchange notes about the season lying ahead. The restaurant is popular amongst tourists and locals, for its good value meat dishes, and parking availability.  Each guest also received a ‘goodie box’, containing some treats with the menu update.

The Sour Service Award goes to COSATU provincial secretary Tony Ehrenreich, for allegedly telling striking farm workers in De Doorns: “There is already blood on the farm workers and unless it stops there will be blood on the farmers  of these farms. We will grab the land and give it to the rightful owners”.  The Freedom Front is to ask the Human Rights Commission to investigate his address for hate speech. Ehrenreich denies having made these comments, reports the Cape Times.

The WhaleTales Sweet & Sour Service Awards are presented every Friday on the WhaleTales blog.  Nominations for the Sweet and Sour Service Awards can be sent to Chris von Ulmenstein at info@whalecottage.com.   Past winners of the Sweet and Sour Service Awards can be read on the Friday posts of this blog, and in the WhaleTales newsletters on the www.whalecottage.com website.

Africa Cup of Nations 2013: City of Cape Town Tourism foul deserves red card!

The tourism industry is astounded that the City of Cape Town has fouled up its opportunity to generate revenue during the 29th Africa Cup of Nations championships (AFCON), which will be hosted in our country between January and February next year.  The winners of the Championships qualify for the 2013 FIFA Confederations Cup in Brazil.

Last week the soccer stadia hosting the 32 matches for the Championships were announced, Soccer City in Johannesburg hosting the opening and closing ceremonies and matches.  The other matches will be played at Mbombela Stadium in Nelspruit, Nelson Mandela Stadium in Port Elizabeth, Royal Bafokeng Stadium in Rustenburg, and Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban. Cape Town Stadium is conspicuous by its absence, the City of Cape Town’s Mayoral Committee member for Tourism, Events, and Marketing, Grant Pascoe, once again showing what a burden he is to the city’s tourism industry!  The city had expressed its opposition to hosting the event, due to the cost burden, and sought a guarantee from the government for at least 50% of the hosting costs to be covered.  The City was also looking to the Confederation of African Football and/or Local Organising Committee to cover 25 % of the costs.  Costs for the host city include the preparation of the pitch, fencing, security, the accommodation of the teams and officials, as well as transport plans, according to the Cape Argus. The City also was unhappy that the event would mean that other events could not be held at the Cape Town Stadium, meaning a loss of income, a poor motivation, given how few events are held at the stadium, less than one per month on average! However, four events have been booked for the mid-January to mid-February period next year, it is reported. In addition, the City of Cape Town’s new Executive Director of Tourism, Events and Marketing, Anton Groenewald, and reporting to Councillor Pascoe, naively expressed the concern of the public liability of the players in case of an accident, something every event organiser is insured for!  The City accused the organisers of ‘bully tactics’ and that it was being held to ‘ransom‘!  The City did not present the approval for funding to its full Council meeting, the deadline date for the bid having preceded the Council meeting date at the end of April.

The South African Football Association (SAFA) agreement placed the financial burden solely on the bidding cities. The Minister of Sport Fikile Mbalula said that the cost of hosting the matches would be funded by the government, private enterprise, and the Confederation of African Football.

Even more astounding is the city’s decision, given that Councillor Pascoe’s portfolio includes the Cape Town Stadium, which is running at a significant loss, the City not having been able to find an operator to generate an income from the stadium other than a few local soccer matches, religious gatherings, and pop concerts! Cape Town Mayor Patricia de Lille prepared a statement in reaction to the Host City announcement, as published in Politicsweb: “The City of Cape Town notes with deep disappointment the decision not to include Cape Town as a host city for the African Cup of Nations (AFCON) 2013. From the outset, the City expressed the desire to be part of what we truly believe is a celebration of African football. However, at each stage of the process, we have highlighted a number of serious legal, financial and other concerns that needed to be negotiated in order for the City to comply with our legal responsibilities and to ensure that we do not compromise the interests of the ratepayers and citizens of Cape Town”. The Mayor added that the City’s concerns had not been responded to, and that it had to hear via media reports that it had not been successful in its bid.  She also reiterated the City’s commitment to hosting ‘high profile national, regional and international football matches’, and intimated that a ‘high profile football tournament’ would be hosted next month, rather short notice one would think, given that it is a month away and has not been finalised nor announced!

Johannesburg had also balked at the cost of hosting the event, and therefore its involvement has been reduced to the first and last day of the Championships, the government stepping in to help bear some of the costs.  One wonders why the government did not help Cape Town with its concerns about the cost of the event, and whether politics led to the DA-led City of Cape Town having been excluded, or whether it is a reflection of the poor negotiation skills of Councillor Pascoe. We would assume it is the latter, given Mayor de Lille’s complaint that the City did not receive any written response to its concerns!  This is reinforced by the statement of Mvuzo Mbebe, the AFCON 2013 CEO, in which he questioned why the City of Cape Town was communicating with his organisation via the media instead of with him directly!

Libya had originally won the bid to host the African Cup of Nations 2013, but the political turmoil in the country led to the event being moved to South Africa two years ago.

The Cape Chamber of Commerce does not usually receive our support, due to its communication gaffes, but the association supported an AFCON bid by Cape Town, stating that the cost involved was worth the price tag, reported the Sunday Argus.  Its President Michael Bagraim said last month: “The costs of the tournament are unknown at this stage, and the city will almost certainly take an initial loss. But the Afcon could open up many other venue (sic) streams in the long term”.  The benefits for the tourism, transport and accommodation sectors were clear, he said (perhaps not understanding that the accommodation industry is part of the tourism sector!). Bagraim added that the event would have the economic benefit of a Two Oceans Marathon or a Cape Argus Pick ‘n Pay Cycle Tour, being good examples of event tourism, which the tourism industry recognises the valuable impact of.  A further tourism benefit was that the event would have created exposure for Cape Town in Africa, sorely needed to reduce the burden on the traditional European source markets. The Chamber expressed its disappointment that Cape Town had not been included as a host city, after the announcement last week.  Oddly, the tourism industry has not spoken out against the City of Cape Town’s handling of the AFCON bid.

COSATU provincial secretary Tony Ehrenreich was quick to make political capital out of the AFCON bid debacle, and for once we must agree with him, saying that the bid problems were similar to those of the Saracens versus Biarritz Heineken Cup match, which cost the city dearly when the match scheduled to be held in Cape Town in January this year was moved to another country, due to the City of Cape Town’s inability to make a decision about whether to host the event at Newlands or at Cape Town Stadium. Ehrenreich has threatened to take the City of Cape Town, of which he is an (ANC) Councillor, to the Equality Court over the AFCON bid!

We have previously questioned Councillor Pascoe’s ability to manage his portfolio of Tourism, Events, and Marketing, and ask how the performance, or lack of in the case of Councillor Pascoe, is evaluated, and how much more damage the Councillor will cause before any action is taken against him and he be removed from this position!  Councillor Pascoe has no business experience, and it is showing!  What is interesting is that Mayor de Lille motivates her administration’s decision on the basis of her care for ratepayers and the citizens of Cape Town – the former were not consulted in preparation for the 2010 World Cup involvement, creating a long term rates burden for its ratepayers. Capetonians were also not consulted about AFCON.  Many of the residents of Cape Town would welcome a big soccer event in the city, given the beneficial bonding the soccer event created two years ago.  The estimated cost that the City of Cape Town was protesting about was R27 million, which was expected to grow to R40 million or more, reported Southern African Tourism Update.  This figure is less than the City’s annual budget spent on Cape Town Tourism, and may be a far better investment in tourism than the predominant Tweet-Marketing done by the tourism body!

The AFCON booby prize goes to Cape Town, Bloemfontein, Polokwane, and Kimberley, in hosting the 2014 African Nations Championships (CHAN), it has been announced.  No dates have been announced for the Championships in 2014, and one wonders if the City of Cape Town will blow the whistle on this event too!

POSTSCRIPT 7/5: The Cape Times today has a lead story entitled “City slams Safa over soccer Cup snub”, writing that Councillor Grant Pascoe is blaming SAFA for treating the City as ‘palookas’, shocking that a Councillor in general, and the one heading up Tourism, Events, and Marketing, could use such unprofessional language. The article also quotes Safa as stating that ‘the losers will always cry foul’!  SAFA stated that the four soccer stadia were chosen in cities that ‘are winners’, a terrible criticism of Cape Town, by default!  The 2014 CHAN games are described as B team matches, an even worse slap for Cape Town.

POSTSCRIPT 7/5: The Cape Argus this evening reports that the City of Cape Town has four events booked for the Cape Town Stadium for January/February 2013, which it would have had to cancel had it been an AFCON host city. The events include an international pop concert, an international rugby match, and two film shoots.

POSTSCRIPT 14/5: In his Cape Argus column, Mike Wills last week both praised the City of Cape Town for its financial fiduciary concerns, and slammed it for its ‘tonality of the approach’, in spending too much time in telling SAFA what to do!  He concluded that the end result, other than a tourism loss and an empty Fan Walk, is the entrenchment of the Cape Town stereotype of ‘Cape Town Hates Soccer’, expanded into ‘Cape Town Hate Things That Black People Like’!

POSTSCRIPT 18/6: The Times has reported that the African Cup of Nations will cost R400 million to host next year, including R20 million to accommodate the VIPs, and R25 million for marketing.  The cost to the four host cities collectively will be R90 million.

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

Tourism in the Cape to be transformed from ‘ugly stepsister to Cinderella’!

Four days ago we called for the establishment of a co-ordinated marketing body representing Cape Town and the Western Cape, given the contradictory articles written in the Cape Times by Cape Town Routes Unlimited CEO Calvyn Gilfellan and City Councillor Tony Ehrenreich.  The day after our blogpost appeared provincial Tourism Minister Alan Winde announced a surprise move for Cape Town Routes Unlimited, which will see the provincial tourism marketing body incorporated into the provincial investment and trade marketing body Wesgro from April.

Minister Winde said that the new body does not have a name yet, and it is uncertain if its name will change. Cape Town Routes Unlimited will be wound down, and the province’s tourism, trade and investment marketing will be pulled in under one roof, to ‘bring greater efficiency in these strained economic times’, said the Minister’s media release.  Minister Winde had previously announced the creation of an Economic Development Agency, a co-ordinated body of about twenty associations marketing various business aspects of the Western Cape.  The Agency will provide economic and marketing intelligence, develop an economic vision and strategy, help to attract, retain and build business, create a united brand, and will encourage ‘optimal delivery’ of the new body.  What was not revealed previously was that Wesgro is to become ‘the single economic development delivery agency of the Western Cape Government, and its official implementing agency’ from April.

Wesgro CEO Nils Flaatten motivated the incorporation of the tourism body into Wesgro as follows: “Through this move, we can combine our financial and personnel resources to drive a far more aggressive international marketing campaign with a unified brand name focused on business and tourism.  The creation of tourism marketing within Wesgro will result in greater efficiencies, economies of scale and a complete set of services”. He added that data collection will guide the organisation’s understanding of the world economy, and will guide ‘action plans and delivery’. Gilfellan assured the industry that it can expect ‘even better tourism destination marketing programmes and support’, an unfortunate overstatement of the industry’s trust in and support of Cape Town Routes Unlimited, which demise will not be missed.

A task team representing both Wesgro and Cape Town Routes Unlimited is working on the incorporation, and on repealing the Western Cape Tourism Act of 2004, which dictated the setting up of the Destination Marketing Organisation (DMO), which later became Cape Town Routes Unlimited.  The Western Cape Trade and Investment Agency Law Amendment Act of 2005 is to be expanded, to incorporate the function of tourism marketing.

Minister Winde said about the role of tourism in the Western Cape that ‘it is seen as the ugly stepsister when in fact it has the potential to be the Cinderella of our economy.  Tourism accounts for 10% of this province’s GDP, making it a very serious business. This move will allow us to give this industry the attention it deserves’.

Minister Winde would not commit to the incorporation of Cape Town Tourism into the new provincial marketing body, stating that he can only make decisions at a provincial level.  The real wasteful and duplicated marketing expenditure occurs between Cape Town Tourism and Cape Town Routes Unlimited, and it is this duplication and resultant cost that should be prioritised before Cape Town Routes Unlimited is incorporated into Wesgro.  Given that both the City of Cape Town and the Western Cape province are run by the DA, one would think that this would be a relatively easy amalgamation to achieve!

Nils Flaatten was appointed CEO of Wesgro earlier this month, having been its Acting CEO since June 2010. He has been a Rotary Exchange student, studied at the University of Stellenbosch, worked in London for Dresdner RCM Global Investors, in Jersey for Barclays Global Investors, in Hong Kong for Citigroup, in London for the Capital Markets Company, was an advisor for the provincial Minister for Development, Economics and Planning, and was the MD of the African Carbon Trust.  Ironically Cape Town Tourism’s CEO Mariette du Toit-Helmbold sits on the Wesgro Board, with Accelerate Cape Town CEO Guy Lundy (who is closely allied to Cape Town Tourism), and Bulelwa Ngwana, the MD of the Cape Town Partnership, all three also serving on the Cape Town Tourism Board, and others.  It will be interesting to see how Cape Town Tourism’s Mrs Helmbold reacts to the incorporation of Cape Town Routes Unlimited, but she will be out of action until the incorporation takes place, being on maternity leave.

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

Does Cape Town tourism need transformation to attract South African tourists?

The Cape Times yesterday presented an interesting contrast of views of what tourism in Cape Town needs to cope with the tourism crisis, which could only get worse as the world economies continue to wobble.

Most astounding was the admission by Cape Town Routes Unlimited CEO Calvyn Gelfillan that his organisation has been flawed in neglecting the local South African market in attracting tourists to Cape Town and the Western Cape.  Interesting is that Gilfellan writes now that our industry ‘is also beginning to feel the effects of the fallout’ – one wonders where he has been in the past six months, when the worst-ever tourism year has been written about extensively! Now his organisation thinks that targeting ‘black professionals’ from Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, and the Eastern Cape will solve the region’s tourism woes, and he proudly proclaims that “Cape Town and the Western Cape are going black”!  Gilfellan mentions that our province is seen to be unfriendly to this target market, that it is expensive as far as food and accommodation go, and that Table Mountain and the N2 are not safe.   In his very ‘hip’ article he does not mention at all what his organisation is doing to attract the newly identified target market (not at the expense of existing source markets, he assures readers), nor does he indicate what his organisation is doing to turn around the negative perceptions about tourism friendliness, pricing and safety.

If one were to be a member of the target market of Cape Town Routes Unlimited, one could be offended, as Gilfellan makes it sound that his organisation is only targeting it because the province’s tourism industry is in crisis!  He describes the new target market as “…the emerging black professional class, the section of society that’s upwardly mobile, an area that advertisers home in on when they launch new cars, glossy magazines, or products. You can’t miss them. They’re almost everywhere.  They are the successful face of the new South Africa. They’re also the future and present of tourism”.  He invites the target market to ‘test us‘, and to see why “you have not tasted South Africa if you’ve not been to Cape Town and the Western Cape”. I wonder if this target market will agree, being quite happy to be living in a province like Gauteng one would imagine, where advancement opportunities alone would be more favourable than in the Cape.

Tony Ehrenreich’s views are always good for a laugh, but one must admire him for his dedication and focus to a theme, which he writes about every few months, being about the discrimination in tourism and its ‘apartheid beneficiaries’.  Interesting about his attack on Cape Town tourism is that he is a Cape Town City Councillor, and should be good at making himself heard inside the hallowed halls of the City, and has been a Board member of Cape Town Routes Unlimited in his capacity as general secretary of trade union federation COSATU.  One does not see that he has made much headway in transforming tourism in both these seats to date.

In his Cape Times article Ehrenreich goes on about his pet hobbyhorse of tourism in Cape Town being a ‘white man’s business’, pointing a finger at the big players and beneficiaries of tourism.  His statement implies both criticism of racism and sexism, but it is on the racial side that his article focuses.  He blames the City of Cape Town for not including the ‘local communities’ into the ‘economic opportunities and plans’ for the city.  He points a finger at the ‘old boy’s network of tourism businesses getting the lion’s share of the local tourism cake’.   Having been in tourism for the last fifteen years, I have not been aware of any such chauvinistic benefits going to any specific groups in our province.  It is the ‘old boys’ who have used their money and connections to raise more money, to invest in hotels, restaurants and vehicles, to offer tourism products and services – not one of these ‘old boys’ have been sleeping well in the past year, given the state of the tourism industry in our city!   Ehrenreich also does not give credit to the ‘old boys’ employing a large number of staff who live in the ‘local communities’, as well as training them, so that they can improve their positions and therefore incomes, nor to the informal sector of beggars and car guards who benefit from tourism too.

Ehrenreich also attacks the R40 million sponsorship of Cape Town Tourism, funded by his City of Cape Town, and benefiting mainly ‘white tourist operators’.  While Ehrenreich and I share a criticism of Cape Town Tourism, it is for different reasons – we have seen wasteful expenditure go to projects of friends of staff of the tourism body. I can however ‘defend’ Cape Town Tourism in that the body accepts membership from all  tourism players, irrespective of their skin colour, and Ehrenreich knows that.  He is also critical of Cape Town Tourism’s participation, by means of funding, of the Table Mountain New7Wonders of Nature vote (this was actually funded by the City of Cape Town itself) and the World Design Capital 2014 (which was also funded  by the City of Cape Town via the Cape Town Partnership), without any transformation linked to these projects, he wrote! These two factual errors show how out of touch Ehrenreich is with what his Council is doing in respect of tourism!  Ehrenreich loses credibility when he continues his rant about ‘white  businesses’ being promoted, at the expense of manufacturing, losing focus in his diatribe!   He is stuck in time, in that he writes about the ‘profiteering from mega-events like the World Cup by overcharging customers’, which is deterring visitors from returning to Cape Town.  If there was one body that did exploit our local tourism industry, then it was FIFA’s MATCH, but no local industry can be held responsible for Ehrenreich’s unfair and unfounded attack.

Ehrenreich attacks the money that went into the development of the Green Point Urban Park, which is open to all and well used by residents of ‘local communities‘, and which was part of the Cape Town Stadium budget agreed to and managed by the City of Cape Town.  He calls instead for other City-owned nature reserves such as Zandvlei, Rondevlei and Princessvlei to be developed, and to employ local unemployed residents of nearby communities as eco-tourism guides, as well as to upgrade the facilties used by local communities at Monwabisi, Mnandi Beach, and Strandfontein Pavilion.   Ehrenreich also challenges his own City’s tourism department to develop new tourism products. Ideally Ehrenreich would like to see support for local ‘black entrepreneurs’ to develop new tourism products to ‘compete with the likes of the V&A Waterfront’.   Clearly what Ehrenreich wants developed will not be what Cape Town Routes Unlimited’s new target market will be wanting to experience when they come to Cape Town.

One would hope that the tourism players in our city and province could co-ordinate their tourism strategies and speak as one voice.  One wonders how the City of Cape Town tolerates and allows Ehrenreich to so openly criticise the work that it is doing – surely there is a code of conduct for City councillors to not denigrate the body on which they serve!  The province’s Economic Development Plan appears to be hanging in mid-air, and the time has come to place all Cape Town and Western Cape marketing bodies into one home, with a co-ordinated and streamlined marketing programme.

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