Tag Archives: Tourvest

WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 9/10 November

WhaleTalesTourism, Food, and Wine news headlines

*   Distell has handed over a whale disentanglement kit to the NSRI in Hermanus, funded by monies raised at the Whale Festival.

*   Fewer flights leaving the UK are delayed.

*   Cape Town has a new ambassador in Katie Holmes, Tweeting from Table Mountain with a photograph yesterday: ‘Beautiful day in Cape Town’.

*  The SA Brandy Foundation has recognised the contribution of a number of its product drinkers, and has inducted them into the Brandy Guild of SA: Elana Afrika-Bredenkamp, Warren Haefele, Schalk Burger, Wini Bowman, Peter Pitsiladi, Mike Meyers, and Amaro Fernandes. (received via Manley Communications)

*   Carlos Santana will be performing at the Grand Arena in Cape Town on 25, 26 and 27 February, his first Cape Town appearance ever.

*   About 41000 visitors from around the world attended the World Travel Market (WTM) in London earlier this week.

*   World Travel Market (WTM) is massive, offers poor quality Continue reading →

SATSA appoints David Frost as CEO, driving Tourism competitiveness!

David Frost SATSAThe Southern Africa Tourism Services Association (SATSA), an association of tourism operators, has appointed Economist and Tourism Strategist David Frost as its CEO. Given that SATSA represents a large number of tourism operators, and Frost does not fear speaking out, it will be interesting to see how he will drive his association and members to achieve his goal of enhancing the competitiveness of our country’s Tourism industry.

SATSA has more than 700 members who guarantee ‘quality in tourism‘, its website states.  This is achieved by annual assessments which are done of its members, and that all members are bonded, ‘providing a financial guarantee of deposits held against the involuntary liquidation of a SATSA member‘. Members span the transport, tour operator, destination management, accommodation, tourism broker, adventure tourism, business tourism, and tourism service sectors, the bulk of the components of the Tourism industry.  The main benefits of being a SATSA member are the lobbying done with the government on behalf of the industry, networking with other members, an Employee Benefit and Provident Fund, legal advice offered, member discounts, arbitration services, and newsletters.

Frost has a wide experience in Tourism, having moved into the Continue reading →

Red Bull Sweet Service and Seekers Travel Sour Service Awards!

The Sweet Service Award goes to Red Bull and its entertaining Flugtag it hosted in the V&A Waterfront last Sunday, the first since its last South African event ten years ago.  A record count of over 200000 attendees led to traffic congestion and a shortage of parking in the V&A, which meant that visitors had to park at the Cape Town International Convention Centre. From Twitter it was evident to see that everyone had a super time, despite the traffic problems in getting there.   One hopes that the City of Cape Town takes a leaf out of Red Bull’s book in how to organise a successful mega event!

The Sour Service Award goes to Tourvest-owned Seekers Travel and its Public Sector Division, in cancelling a booking for our long-standing Department of Environmental Affairs clients.  We had received the booking from the friendly Nangamso Nyonkana, but a personal crisis led her to leave the office and hand over the booking to her rude colleague Nomhle Khosi.  Despite having met all the onerous invoicing requirements, we were told that the travel agency only pays on the day of guest arrival, and that the payment run for the whole company only starts at 14h30, by which time the guests may have checked in already.  When we asked Nomhle to help us to chase the payment in the system, she refused, and cancelled the booking instead, without explanation. The Operations Manager Shelley refused to intervene.  Guest Houses are loath to deal with travel agents, and late payment is one of the major irritations, Seekers being a large company and works according to rules, despite the inconvenience to their clients and suppliers!  The Department client Eugene Swart was shocked to hear about Seeker’s unprofessional conduct, and will take the matter further!

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.

Cape Tourism under the weather, 2011 was ‘worst year’!

Winchester Mansions General Manager and Cape Town Tourism Director Nils Heckscher has told Southern African Tourism Update that ‘2011 was the worst year for many in the industry‘, and that tourism performance is a long way away from the good performance levels last seen five years ago.

Given Mr Heckscher’s roles as FEDHASA Cape Chairman until 2010, and as a Director of Cape Town Tourism currently, as well as his position in running a 4-star hotel in Sea Point, he should have been able to make a difference to the fortunes of the tourism industry in encouraging the management of Cape Town Tourism in particular to come up with more creative marketing campaigns to address the downward slide in tourist performance in the Cape.  Sadly, this has not been seen to date.

The tourism newsletter’s survey about the state of the tourism nation reflected that 57% of tourism players said that they are experiencing a ‘quiet winter’, 29% said it was ‘average’, and only 14% said they were ‘busy’, leading the writer of the article to conclude that ‘recovery is still a long way off‘.

Minister of Tourism Marthinus van Schalkwyk’s regular positive spin on tourism numbers is regularly questioned by the tourism industry, in not reflecting its day-to-day experience.  Heckscher calls for better interrogation of tourism statistics, and cautions against putting all one’s eggs into the Europe basket, recommending diversification into the African continent. Seeing an increase in bookings relative to 2011, not difficult due to it having been a tough tourism year, he is uncertain whether the trend will continue: “Nobody knows and the landscape has changed for the long term. Nothing is like it was and forecasting has become increasingly difficult.”

Large tour operator Tourvest has seen an improvement in tourism from ‘Germanic Europe’, but describes tourism from the UK, the Netherlands, and the southern Mediterranean countries as continuing to be ‘under pressure’.  The poor summer in Europe and the UK makes the company optimistic about the prospect of better bookings for the summer lying ahead.

Cape Town and its environs have suffered a very wet winter, which has not encouraged Gautengers to come to Cape Town with forecasts of snow and wild storms, nor have Capetonians left their warm homes to stay in towns and villages outside of Cape Town, many cancelling their bookings because of the weather.  The usual Italian tourism influx is barely visible, with few Italians travelling in their holiday month this year.

With no visible marketing of the Western Cape by Wesgro since it took over Cape Town Routes Unlimited, questionable marketing by Cape Town Tourism of Cape Town, high airline ticket prices, and no end to the Eurozone crisis and the recession in the UK, the prospects for the tourism summer ahead look bleak. The tourism industry will be largely reliant on local tourists coming to Cape Town, yet there is little sign of domestic marketing by both Cape Town Tourism and Wesgro.

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