Tag Archives: Tourism Business Council of South Africa

WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 24 October

WhaleTalesTourism, Food, and Wine news headlines

*   UK hotels are concerned that they may have spoilt tourists by offering discounts to counter the recession of the past few years, and that this is a standard expectation of their customers now.

*   The Minister of Finance Pravin Ghordan has announced stringent cost-cutting measures in respect of travel and entertainment, including a ban on first-class air travel (Business Class allowed for Ministers, Directors General and their deputies), B group car rental only,  withdrawal of official credit cards, restricting the size of travel delegations, and banning hotel accommodation, rental accommodation to be used; and banning the purchase of alcohol for state events.

*   Confidence in the Tourism industry is at its highest ever since the Tourism Business Council of South Africa and FNB introduced their Tourism Business Index in 2010,  reaching 116 in the third quarter of this year.  However, Continue reading →

WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 20 September

WhaleTalesTourism, Food, and Wine news headlines

*  Premium South African wines are increasingly being  exported to other African countries, Nigeria in particular, as well as to Ghana, Angola, Tanzania, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

*   American travelers are likely to rate service satisfaction highest, and the Japanese tourists the lowest, with French, German, Italian, Spanish and British tourists falling in between these satisfaction rating spectrums.  This finding comes from a multicountry service satisfaction study conducted amongst a sample of 200000 travelers.

*   We have it all wrong – the most popular travel time for the UK and German market is August, tourists taking about 10 days off, and traveling to the Balearic islands, Turkey, or Greece in Europe, and Mexico on long haul trips, a TUI study of its bookings for 2013 has found.

*   ACSA is planning to introduce a service whereby one can buy duty-free goods on Continue reading →

WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 15 August

WhaleTalesTourism, Food, and Wine news headlines

*   The Michelangelo International Wine Awards has introduced a new Platinum medal tier, and two Trophies, for best MCC, and for best ‘mocha style’ Pinotage!

*   Depressing reading is the report about University of Stellenbosch Professor Trevor Britz’s study about the quality (or lack of) our country’s rivers, including the Eerste and Plankenbrug Rivers in Stellenbosch, which can significantly affect their use for agricultural irrigation.

*   Spar is partnering with Shell in setting up Spar Express retail stores at selected petrol stations on a trial basis, in Gauteng, following in the footsteps of BP/Pick ‘n Pay, Continue reading →

WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 17 July

WhaleTalesTourism, Food, Wine news headlines

*   Wellington is hosting a food and wine festival on 14 September, it has cleverly called Fork & Cork.

*   The Western Cape is hoping to attract 100000 cycle tourists by 2023, reports Southern Africa Tourism Update, and is working with the Dutch Embassy in conducting an economic impact study.

*   SA Tourism expects tourism growth of 8% from Germany in the next year, lower than the 13% growth achieved in the past year.  Interesting is that 70% of Germans still book their holidays via travel agents, even though they do extensive research about the holiday themselves in the internet.

*   The shares of listed UK travel companies are seeing a drop, due to the UK heatwave, reports TravelMole.

*   BA has developed ‘movie-flavoured popcorn‘ for a film festival to be held in London next week, including ‘shark bite’, ‘shaken and not stirred Martini’, and ‘suncream’ flavours, and may serve them on flights in future. Continue reading →