Tag Archives: Tourism Grading Council

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

Cape has most 2010 accommodation

Of all the provinces, the Western Cape has the largest availability of rooms for the 2010 World Cup, according to the Minister of Tourism, Marthinus van Schalkwyk, when he addressed the media about the new tourism portal (see blog post dated 12 December 2009), reports the Cape Argus.

Minister van Schalkwyk stated that the Cape has 62 000 rooms, of the country total of 202 000 rooms, just less than one-third.   Gauteng has 44 000 and Kwa-Zulu Natal has 31000 rooms.   Given that 450 000 foreign visitors are expected to come to South Africa in June and July 2010, and assuming that 2 persons will share a room, the country should have enough accommodation. (What the Minister has not incorporated into his calculations is that South Africans are the largest purchasers of tickets, and may travel from one city to another to view a match, and may also need accommodation).

The estimation of the number of rooms comes from the National Accommodation Database, which was established via calls made to all known accommodation establishments, and may be understated, as many accommodation owners may have withheld information from the callers involved in the database verification, as they called at non-business hours, such as on Sunday afternoons, and at 20h00 in the evening.

The Minister quoted the following statistics: there are close to 19 000 accommodation establishments in the country, of which 40 % are graded by the Tourism Grading Council.   Just more than half of the 202 000 rooms are graded.   Each host city has a minimum of  7 500 accommodation establishments, within a 50 km radius of a World Cup stadium.   There are just more than 100 000 rooms in host cities.

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

Cape Town Routes Unlimited gets new City Board!

The old ANC-run provincial government in the Western Cape made a quick appointment of new directors of the Board of Cape Town Routes Unlimited (CTRU) before it vacates its offices due to the election results, having suffered a heavy defeat in the 22 April provincial elections.

The Board is once again run by Chairman Peter Bacon, ex-Sun International CEO.   Other members include Phillip Couvaras, Chairman of FEDHASA Cape, who at the time of his election at FEDHASA last year did not know what Cape Town Routes Unlimited stood for; Vernon Kirsten, the ex-Chairman of SATSA; Tembi Kunene, the CEO of the Tourism Grading Council; Deon Cloete, the General Manager of the Airports Company Cape Town branch; Annemie Liebenberg, Marketing Manager of the V & A Waterfront; Labeeqah  Schuurman, Head of the provincial Department of Economic Development and Tourism; Mangaliso Mdlalo, chairman of Business Western Cape;  Stephen de Vries of the Eden District Municipality; and Chrissie Brink of the Cape Winelands District Municipality.

The Board is City dominated, which is a surprise, given the City of Cape Town’s withdrawal of its funding from CTRU.  Two City seats are still vacant.   CTRU should be focusing on marketing the rest of the province while Cape Town Tourism has been given the mandate to market Cape Town.   What is also obvious is that there is no representation of small accommodation players – FEDHASA and SATSA represent the large tourism players in the main, and are not in touch with small accommodation establishments.

A relief is the demise of Tony Ehrenreich of COSATU, who served on the Board for a number of years, probably with a trade-off that he was not allowed to comment about tourism at all, which he was fond of doing in a most destructive manner, whilst serving on the board to represent hospitality industry labour.

It will be interesting to see how the DA-led province will deal with the two separate tourism bodies Cape Town Tourism and Cape Town Routes Unlimited, and whether they will revert to one united CTRU!

SA can accommodate World Cup

S A Tourism has reacted confidently to FIFA President Sepp Blatter’s comments about the shortage of accommodation for 2010, by stating that the country has more than enough accommodation for the event, with close to 100 000 graded rooms.

Only about 28 000 of FIFA’s required 55 000 rooms for match officials have been signed up by MATCH, FIFA’s accommodation and ticketing agency, and probably reflects resistance by accommodation establishments due to the unfavourable contract terms, and the feedback received from World Cup 2006, when MATCH cancelled large numbers of hotel rooms in Germany in the last minute, without paying a cancellation penalty.

To counter Blatter’s criticism about the lack of marketing for 2010, S A Tourism CEO Moeketsi Mosola has announced that R 200 million will be spent on a destination marketing campaign for the event, reports Travelwires.

Mosola has cautioned the accommodation industry to charge reasonable rates in winter 2010, to support South Africa’s positioning as a value-for-money destination. The 40 % commission that MATCH charges on top of the establishments’ accommodation rates for 2010, according to a set formula, is contrary to S A Tourism’s pricing caution, as it will make all establishments contracted to MATCH appear extremely expensive.