Tag Archives: Visitor Information Services

Cape Town Tourism: Not much about AGM was constitutional! (second impressions)

The AGM of Cape Town Tourism was so bizarre, that it has taken some time to understand exactly what happened on Thursday evening at the Cape Town International Convention Centre. It appears that a number of aspects of the AGM are unconstitutional!

Having been a Board member and Deputy Chairman of the previous section 21 Cape Town Tourism until 2004, and having seen the power of the City of Cape Town in using its financial funding muscle to achieve what it wants, I went back to the Constitution of Cape Town Tourism, reading the version last updated after the AGM in 2011 (the resolution amending some typing errors in the Constitution, ‘approved’ on Thursday evening, has not yet been implemented).  I discovered the following AGM procedures to be in breach of the Constitution of Cape Town Tourism:

1.  Clause 8.1.2 states: “The notice convening the annual general meeting must state in broad terms the business to be transacted at the meeting and must specify the terms of any resolutions to be proposed”. The wording of the clause seems clumsy, but it would appear to mean that members should receive the resolutions when they receive the notice of the AGM.  This was not the case, making the adoption of the Resolutions by show of hands at the meeting unconstitutional.

2.  Even more odd was that no Annual Report was presented nor adopted at the meeting, the constitutional requirement (clause 8.1.5.2) being that ‘the presentation and adoption of the annual report of the Chairperson of Cape Town Tourism and the budget and business plan for the forthcoming year‘.  As reported, outgoing Chairman Ian Bartes spent most of his talk focusing on the City of Cape Town’s changed Budget allocation of R36 million (from R42 million), and the removal of the Destination Marketing responsibility from Cape Town Tourism.  He did mention that staff costs had reduced by 3%, and all other costs by 4% in the past financial year, and intimated that retrenchments may be on the cards, in answer to a question.  No Business Plan was presented.

3.  Similarly, in clause 8.1.5.3, ‘the consideration of the draft annual financial statements of Cape Town Tourism, as approved by the Board’ is specified in the Constitution, but no motion was moved to adopt the Financials!

4.  The biggest shock of the AGM was the announcement that Cape Town Tourism is to lose its role of Destination Marketing, and has been left with only the duties of ‘Tourism Marketing’ and Visitor Information Services. Clause 5.1 of the Constitution defines the role of Cape Town Tourism as follows: ‘The main object of Cape Town Tourism is to provide destination marketing services and visitor services and thereby to provide services for the benefit of Cape Town Tourism members and the wider tourism industry’. ‘Destination Marketing’ is the role allocated to Cape Town Tourism, and there is no reference to a separate category of ‘Tourism Marketing’!  In 2008 the members of Cape Town Tourism had voted to accept Cape Town Tourism’s expanded role of Destination Marketing, which had led to the appointment of a Marketing Manager (the current incumbent is Velma Corcoran).

The City’s decision to take ‘Destination Marketing’ away from Cape Town Tourism is therefore in breach of the Constitution of Cape Town Tourism.  I challenged Mr Groenewald about this after the AGM, and he quickly responded that the resolutions presented at the AGM had taken care of this.  There was no mention of a resolution relating to the changed role of Cape Town Tourism at the AGM. This is the record of the 2012 Resolutions on the Cape Town Tourism website:

“RESOLUTIONS TO BE TABLED AT THE ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING OF CAPE TOWN TOURISM (“CTT”) TO BE HELD AT THE CAPE TOWN INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION CENTRE ON 18 OCTOBER 2012

RESOLVED:

1. Finances

That, in terms of clause 15.2.1 of CTT’s Constitution (“the Constitution”), membership fees for the 2013/14 financial year be increased by 6.5% (six comma five percent).

2. Allowances

That, in terms of clause 16 of the Constitution, the following allowances and re-imbursements be paid to the members of the Board of CTT for the 2013/14 financial year:

2.1 Allowance: R400.00 per month;

2.2 Travel and parking: in accordance with CTT’s conditions of service for staff members.

3. Appointment of auditors

That, in terms of clause 15.5 of the Constitution, PKF be re-appointed as the auditors of CTT for the 2013/14 financial year.

4. Constitution

That the following amendments to the Constitution be approved, with effect from 18 October 2012:

4.1 By the deletion of clause 1.3 and its replacement by the following:

“In 2011 and in 2012 it was decided by the members of Cape Town Tourism to effect further

amendments to the Constitution.  These amendments have been incorporated in a revised

Constitution, approved as provided for in clause 20 hereof.”

4.2 By the deletion in clause 5.2.2 of the words “Destination Marketing Organisation, known as Cape Town Routes Unlimited (“CTRU”)”, and their replacement by “Destination Marketing, Investment and Trade Promotion Agency for the Western Cape, known as WESGRO (“WESGRO”)”.

4.3  By the deletion in clause 8.1.5.7 of “far” and its replacement by “for”.

4.4 By the deletion in clause 8.2.2 of “Specify” and its replacement by “specify”.

4.5 By the deletion in clause 14.2 of “6 (five)” and its replacement by “5 (five)”. 4.6 That the designation at the end of the Constitution be deleted and replaced by the following:

“Thus adopted unanimously at a special general meeting of Cape Town Tourism held at the Ritz Hotel, Sea Point on 14 August 2008 and amended at the Annual General Meetings of Cape Town Tourism held at the Cape Town International Convention Centre on 17 October 2011 and 18 October 2012.”

it is clear that no Member approval was called for in regard to the future role of Cape Town Tourism, and that a Special General Meeting will have to be called, to make the removal of ‘Destination Marketing’ from Cape Town Tourism’s role constitutional.

Forcing members to vote for three of six ‘Black’ Board nominees, due to the constitutional requirement that three of its Board directors be ‘Black’, was a step backward in voting on the basis of skin colour and not on merit, in our opinion, but was in accordance with the Constitution.

Interesting to note is another clause (12.2), not related to the AGM, in which the Constitution states that ‘Only the Chief Executive Officer or the Chairperson or, in his/her absence, the Vice-Chairperson, are entitled to issue public statements on behalf of Cape Town Tourism’.  Once again the wording is ambiguous (what does ‘issue’ entail?). We have noted that two recent media releases issued by Cape Town Tourism have quoted Councillor Grant Pascoe, in one instance combined with a quote from the CEO Mariette du Toit-Helmbold, and in another instance with no reference to her, which would appear to be unconstitutional.  In hindsight, given the shock AGM announcement, it is clear that the City of Cape Town is now hijacking Cape Town Tourism’s PR activity (the little that there is) for its own glory!  It would appear that quoting only Councillor Pascoe would make such media statements in breach of the Cape Town Tourism Constitution!

Something else that appeared odd was Chairman Bartes’ almost apologetic acknowledgement that he had signed the City of Cape Town’s amended Service Level Agreement, to prevent a ‘qualified audit’, and to ensure ‘stability’, both aspects unexplained.  It sounded as if he had signed the Agreement without Board approval, which may be a breach of the Constitution, as no such power is vested in the Chairman as far as we can see.

The breaches of the Constitution of Cape Town Tourism in its handling of the AGM would appear to reflect an organisation that lost its focus when the City of Cape Town broke the news about its slashed Budget and its changed role in September, coincidentally the same time as the trip to Turkey, which 10-member delegation included Mr Groenewald from the City, and Cape Town Tourism Chairman Bartes, CEO Mrs Helmbold, and more. The breaches are unforgivable, and are a poor reflection on the Board of Cape Town Tourism, and its legal advisers!

Cape Town Tourism will have to call a Special General Meeting to fix its constitutional breaches, to:

1.  Obtain approval of the Financial Statements (circulating them in advance to members)

2.  Obtain approval of the Resolutions again (circulating them in advance)

3.  Obtain approval of the Annual Report, with a Budget and Business Plan (circulating them in advance)

4.  Change the description of the role of Cape Town Tourism, deleting its role of Destination Marketing, in its Constitution.

Clause 20.1 states that the Constitution can be amended by calling a general meeting of its members, with 21 days’ notice to be given to the members of Cape Town Tourism.

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

Premier Zille blamed for Cape Tourism Crisis! Fresh new Cape Tourism Marketing body needed!

The ANC’s Lynne Brown (previous Premier of the Western Cape) and Carol Beerwinkel are blaming Premier Helen Zille for having caused the tourism crisis in the province.  The party seems undecided about the exact cause of the crisis.  Just recently the ANC’s City of Cape Town Councillor Tony Ehrenreich blamed the exorbitant prices of crayfish and wines for the tourism crisis!

Writing on Politicsweb, the ANC politicians state that it is the ‘DA’s politicking’ that caused the underfunding of tourism.   The R40 million budget allocated to Cape Town Tourism by the City of Cape Town is too little to ‘properly market and grow the Western Cape as an international desired destination’, they write (the budget goes to the marketing of Cape Town only).  They state that it was Ms Zille, in her role as Mayor, who cut the budget, ‘to plunge the industry into the dire situation it finds itself in now’.  From having been the top tourist destination for local tourists, the Western Cape has slipped to fourth position.   They blame the DA for playing ‘political football’ with an industry that has an important job creation responsibility.  This led to Cape Town Routes Unlimited and Cape Town Tourism being divided, which meant that Cape Town could not capitalise on the World Cup, ‘with many tourism products like hotels and restaurants underutilised‘, they write.  ‘Today we see a fragmented and scattered messaged marketing plan which is very dangerous to the industry’,  they write in poor English.  The writers conclude that ‘no amount of money in the short term will fix the problem, if some basic problems are not addressed in the industry’, and they call for an Indaba to allow the transformation of the industry.

During Ms Zille’s tenure as Mayor of Cape Town, the Mayoral Committee member for Tourism, Simon Grindrod, appointed a consultancy to analyse the success of Cape Town Routes Unlimited, and found the organisation to not be meeting its brief adequately.  He motivated the cancellation of the City of Cape Town’s 50 % share of funding to Cape Town Routes Unlimited, and arranged for the amendment of the Cape Town Toruism constitution, to allow Cape Town Tourism to take on the marketing of Cape Town in addition to offering Visitor Information Services.   The Western Cape province, now headed by Premier Zille, funds Cape Town Routes Unlimited with about R15 million, for the marketing of the Western Cape, which includes the duplicated marketing of Cape Town by both tourism bodies.

We absolutely agree with the ANC that the Marketing Plan is poor (being ‘dangerous’, as they describe it, may be an exaggeration), but one wonders how they know what is in the Marketing Plan, as no one in the tourism industry has seen a copy of the Plan, as Cape Town Tourism is refusing to make it available to members, and it has not been posted on their website.  Ms Brown appears to have forgotten the tourism structure in the province. She should know that Cape Town Tourism is only focused on marketing Cape Town (although they do seem to go beyond their geographic boundaries, as with last week’s  ‘100 Women 100 Wines’ competition.)

The poor tourism performance since the World Cup cannot be laid at the door of Premier Zille, but rather must be blamed on the recession, the excessive rates charged by FIFA’s MATCH agency,  and the oversupply of accommodation, developed to cash in on the world’s largest sporting event.

We must also question how the City of Cape Town could have allocated the marketing funds to Cape Town Tourism, without evaluating the Marketing capabilities of the organisation’s CEO, Mariette du Toit-Helmbold.  With no marketing experience, her organisation had to appoint a Marketing Manager, and the first incumbent of the job was Lianne Burton, a journalist with no Marketing experience.  This led to the appointment of a PR Manager and an e-Marketing Manager.  Burton left Cape Town Tourism at the end of June this year, but had already changed her relationship with the organisation to that of a consultant from the beginning of this year, meaning that Cape Town Tourism has been anchorless as far as Marketing goes for the last eight months, at a time when the tourism industry slid into crisis mode, without Cape Town Tourism picking this up.  A new e-marketing manager, Kaanita Coleman, was also recently appointed due to resignation of the previous incumbent, but no past experience of the new Manager detailed by Cape Town Tourism.  Whilst surprising for someone in e-Marketing position, it may be a good thing that she has only written four Tweets on her Twitter account to date, given the excessive time spent on Twitter by Cape Town Tourism’s PR Manager!

We doubt that the newly appointed Executive Marketing Manager Velma Corcoran will make any difference, coming from FMCG brand strategy and research consultancy OIL, linked to the Lowe Bull group, where she headed up its Cape Town office.  Mrs Corcoran’s first faux pas, on the day before joining Cape Town Tourism, was to rant as follows on public medium Twitter (@VelBotha) about SAA, an important partner for tourism in Cape Town, and her turn of phrase in such a senior position is not impressive (she still has her ex-employer profile on Twitter!): “EVERYTHING about makes me grumpy, miserable and pissed off. They seem to take pleasure in making it difficult”. Cape Town Tourism wrote as follows about Mrs Corcoran’s appointment: “..we believe that Velma brings a specialist branding and communications experience to our team at a time when we are committing to a strategy based on a strong urban brand positioning to grow demand for Cape Town locally and globally.  The tourism market is facing considerable challenges at the moment, and competitive and commercial experience was a prerequisite for this position’. We wonder then why Cape Town Tourism needs an Australian Strategetic consultant, when it has employed a local brand strategist.  Interesting is that Cape Town Tourism announced the appointment last week of ad agency Ogilvy, not waiting until Mrs Corcoran started her new job on Thursday, so that she could give the appointment her blessing and approval, given her agency background!

As much as the City of Cape Town evaluated the performance of Cape Town Routes Unlimited in terms of meeting its Marketing mandate, we believe that the City of Cape Town should do the same with Cape Town Tourism, as many tourism players do not believe that they are doing a satisfactory job in marketing Cape Town.   Neither Cape Town Tourism not Cape Town Routes Unlimited has the creativity nor the expertise to devise nor implement a Marketing Plan for the city, and therefore a fresh and new joint city and province tourism marketing body is needed, we believe.

POSTSCRIPT 13/9:  We have removed the content of the comment by Mavis Wilken, under threat of legal action by Webber Wentzel, lawyers of Cape Town Tourism.  On the same day as posting the comment on our blog, Ms Wilken forwarded to us an e-mail she addressed in June to the City of Cape Town’s Nombulelo Mofoko and the Western Cape province’s Theuns Vivian, and subsequently forwarded to Premier Helen Zille and to provincial Tourism Minister Alan Winde, alleging irregularities at Cape Town Tourism.

POSTSCRIPT 15/9:  We have just received a further lawyer’s letter from Webber Wentzel, referring to the comment by Maria about Ms Grove, but no demand is made (yet).  In addition, the letter demands again, but not actioned by us, that we apologise to Mrs Helmbold for Mavis Wilken’s alleged ‘defamatory comment‘, that we promise never to write any ‘defamatory’ comments about Cape Town Tourism on Twitter, Facebook and on this Blog in future, and that we provide the full name and contact details of the commenter Mavis Wilken, so that they can take action against her!

POSTSCRIPT 15/9:  We have written an Open Letter to Mr Ian Bartes, the Chairman of Cape Town, after receiving his letter of threatened membership termination of our Whale Cottage Camps Bay, due to our Blog generally, and the comments received on its specifically!

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

Cape Town Tourism and Cape Town Routes Unlimited in PR war, signal divided tourism city in crisis!

If it weren’t about such a serious topic, one would be amused by Cape Town Tourism and Cape Town Routes Unlimited, two bodies ludicrously tasked with the marketing of Cape Town, fighting a PR war, with media releases coming from them in rapid succession, even on weekend evenings!

Historically Cape Town Routes Unlimited was given the mandate to market Cape Town and the Western Cape as a tourism and business destination, but the marketing funds for Cape Town were withdrawn by the City of Cape Town by its then Tourism Councillor Simon Grindrod, due to the unsatisfactory marketing performance by Cape Town Routes Unlimited.  The City’s R15 million was then allocated to Cape Town Tourism, which body originally only had the mandate to run Visitor Information Services in Cape Town and in Somerset West.   Cape Town Routes Unlimited did not stop marketing Cape Town, and now we see both bodies market Cape Town, and appearing to compete against each other for column centimetres in the local newspapers.  Strangely, Cape Town Tourism did not issue a media release about the volcano ash cloud disrupting air traffic on Saturday, as Cape Town Routes Unlimited, with the provincial Tourism Minister Alan Winde, had sent a media release that same evening, unheard of for a public body to be so proactive in providing news.  However, The Finalist status of Cape Town for World Design Capital 2014 has not been acknowledged by Cape Town Routes Unlimited, as Cape Town Tourism was involved in the bid preparation, and announced the news via its media releases and member newsflash on Tuesday.

Cape Town Tourism had not reacted to the tourism industry’s perilous current state.  While it did write that the city’s tourism industry would only pick up by 2014, it focused more on brand Cape Town, and how it needs to be re-positioned, Cape Town Tourism having been responsible for its current (unknown) positioning in the first place, having led the marketing of the city for three years already.   Last week we criticised Cape Town Tourism’s  lack of reaction to the tourism crisis in our city, to which no response was received from its CEO Mariette du Toit-Helmbold.  Yesterday the Cape Times  screamed in its headline: “City’s tourism sector in crisis”, having picked up Cape Town Tourism’s 2014 recovery release, and linking it to the Bureau of Economic Research findings of the worst ever accommodation confidence level of 25%, which we referred to as well, which the journalist mistakenly called ‘occupancy levels’ (occupancy of 25 % would have been most welcome now!).  Incidentally, the article also stated that the City of Cape Town was meeting yesterday to decide whether a grant of an astounding R40 million will go to Cape Town Tourism to market the city.  No outcome of this meeting decision has been made public. We have been vocal about our dissatisfaction with the apparent lack of visible marketing of Cape Town, other than the CEO and PR Manager’s Twitter presence.

Cape Town Tourism reacted to the Cape Times  with a media release today, trying to downplay the severity of the situation and denying the ‘crisis’ in the tourism industry, and incorrectly deducing that it is seasonality that is to blame.  It refers to the good publicity that Cape Town has received recently (which has not brought any enquiries at all), and that the FIFA World Cup was never meant to be a quick fix for the marketing of the city.  It blames ‘out-of-date’ marketing of the city, for which Cape Town Tourism is to blame!  The media release demonstrates how out of touch the organisation is, in that it is the forward bookings that are not coming in at all, for many accommodation establishments, up to 50 % of their bookings having come from the UK in the past, and this enquiry level will not be repeated this summer.  Interestingly, the release uses the ‘silo’ terminology of Marthinus van Schalkwyk, Minister of Tourism, which he used in a speech at FEDHASA Cape last week, but in a different context!  Here is a section of the Cape Town Tourism Media release:

“Cape Town Tourism cautions against alarmist statements about a tourism crisis. “We are in the middle of winter, traditionally a very tough time for the tourism sector in Cape Town.  This is reflected in the low occupancy levels currently experienced by the majority of the industry. The increased supply, decreased demand and lingering recession add to the challenges the tourism sector faces,” says Cape Town Tourism CEO, Mariëtte du-Toit Helmbold. There are signs of recovery, albeit at a slow rate of 3-4%, which will mean that recovery could take significantly longer than initially anticipated unless we change tactics.”

“We cannot ignore the real danger the tourism sector faces by reverting to tried, tested and out-dated marketing methods and continuously operating in silo’s as tourism, business, investment and government. Neither should we stop investing in our traditional markets, which we depend on for the lion’s share of our visitors and revenue, to focus all our attention on growing domestic and business tourism. Tourism remains one of the biggest business sectors and employers for our region. It needs continued investment and a more balanced approach that will see tourism working together with business, investment and other sectors under the powerful and consolidated brand positioning of inspiration and within a single minded economic strategy for our region.  The World Cup taught us much about communicating better with visitors, alternative source markets and about focusing on the customer when developing our brand and marketing messages. Cape Town has a long way to go before the majority of our citizens can call it a great place to live, but the World Cup was a good launch pad for the future. We are a better, brighter, more world-friendly city than before and we have to credit the World Cup with this legacy. Let us build upon this platform created.”

Cape Town Routes Unlimited jumped the gun on Cape Town Tourism last week, in its media release which urged hoteliers to slash their rates, but also demonstrated that the organisation’s CEO, Calvyn Gilfillan, is also not in touch with the industry, in knowing that most accommodation establishments reduce their winter rates by up to 50 %!

We would urge Cape Town Tourism, Cape Town Routes Unlimited, Alan Winde, the provincial Minister of Tourism, and Grant Pascoe, the City of Cape Town’s new Councillor responsible for Tourism, to meet, to find a solution out of the tourism crisis, and to sing off the same song-sheet!

POSTSCRIPT 23/6: The Cape Argus  today reports that Cape Town Tourism’s grant of R40 million was approved yesterday, and that Cape Town Tourism will use the monies to stage off-peak season events as well as a ‘technological campaign to target potential tourists’.   The sad reality is that the Marketing Plan was written before Cape Town Tourism realised that the tourism industry is in crisis – one hopes that they have the flexibility to adapt their plan to cater for the poor summer season lying ahead!  “Cape Town Tourism is committed to playing a leadership role in ensuring that our tourism industry embraces technology.  We will continue to invest significantly in this area, building upon the solid foundation laid in the run-up to the World Cup, and keeping up with global trends, with the focus on mobile and smart phone travel applications for Cape Town”, Cape Town Tourism’s CEO is quoted as saying.  This is hardly the solution to the crisis in the tourism industry in Cape Town!

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