Tag Archives: Trevor Manuel

Rain did not dampen Franschhoek Literary Festival

The third annual Franschhoek Literary Festival this past weekend has been a success, despite extremely heavy rain over the Festival weekend.   Restaurants, shops and accommodation establishments all benefited from the Festival.

Featuring a line-up of speakers including Andre Brink, Max du Preez, Zubeida Jaffer, Shaun Johnson, Vikas Swarup (author of ‘Q & A’, which became the Oscar-winning movie ‘Slumdog Millionaire’), Justin Cartwright,  Christopher Hope and the biographers Pippa Green (Trevor Manual) and Jeremy Gordin (Jacob Zuma), many sessions were sold out.   Franschhoek chefs Reuben Riffel and Neil Jewell spoke about their books ‘Reuben Cooks’ and ‘Bread & Wine’, respectively.

Good news for Franschhoek is that Andre Brink announced that his next book is to be set in Franschhoek. 

The Autumn Music Weekend by Christopher Duigan, a regular visitor to Franschhoek, which ran alongside the Festival, was as excellent as ever, especially the “I Got Rhythm” concert.  

The play ‘Bafana Republic III’, which had its premiere at the Festival, was less of a success.  The dinner at Bread & Wine was found by Festival goers to not live up to expectations.

Tourism on Budget

The Budget speech presented by Trevor Manuel, Minister of Finance, earlier this week makes little reference to tourism and, even more surprising, to FIFA World Cup 2010.

The Minister specifically mentioned: “funding is provided for additional policing capacity during the 2010 Fifa World Cup….”.    He also said that the departure tax on international flights would increase, which was last raised in 2005/6.

Beverages will increase in price to recover the “sin tax” increases of 10,5 cents for a bottle of wine, 7 cents on a can of beer, and R 3, 21 on a bottle of whisky.    The fuel levy will increase by 23 cents a litre for fuel and 24 cents a litre for diesel from April, to fund road construction and maintenance.

SAA received R 1,6 billion to turn the organisation around, an allocation not widely welcomed, given allegations of irregularities by Khaya Ngqula, the SAA CEO.

Manuel warned of the stormy path ahead, and downscaled the growth forecast for the economy to 1,2 % for this year, down from the 3,1 % growth last year.   However, he did indicate his optimism for 2010, given lower interest rates, more public spending, the 2010 World Cup, and the recovery in the world economy, reports Business Report.

Franschhoek financial affair

The Minister of Finance, Trevor Manuel, and the previous CEO of Transnet and soon-to-be CEO of ABSA Bank Maria Ramos, are said to get married in Franschhoek on Saturday on L’Omarins estate, which belongs to the Rupert family, reports The Times.

Franschhoek is known as the Wedding Capital of South Africa, and is even said to be changing its name to the Franschhoek Wedding Valley, due to its popularity as a wedding destination.

Heritage Day boosts tourism

The mid-week Heritage Day on 24 September has been a welcome boost to the tourist industry, with many locals taking the two successive days off to create a long weekend, thereby leading to good accommodation occupancies and restaurant business in the last four days. The Hermanus Whale Festival has been a success, judging by the accommodation shortage in the town in this period.

It would appear that the political turmoil of the public holiday week has had little or no impact on tourism. Perhaps the speedy replacement of ex-President Mbeki by new President Motlanthe, as well as the re-instatement of Finance Minister Trevor Manuel has helped to calm the feelings of South Africans, as well as the financial markets.

Far more worrying for the hospitality industry is the continuing turmoil in the banking and investment industries in the UK and USA, given the importance of these two countries as source markets for tourism to South Africa.

Excellent news for the tourism industry is the further decrease in the price of petrol by about 25 c a litre, and in the price of diesel by about 50 c a litre, on Wednesday 1 October. This brings the price of petrol to just over R 9 a litre.