Tag Archives: West Coast

Petrol price increase will impact on domestic tourism!

The petrol price increase by 81 cents a litre today will have a severe impact on domestic tourism in the Western Cape, Capetonians thinking twice about leaving the city to spend a weekend or even a day in the Winelands, Hermanus, or up the West Coast.  The new petrol price of R12,73 per litre is the highest ever.

The new petrol price will add between R50 and R60 to the cost of a tank of petrol, which can now touch on R700 per tank of petrol! Not only will it affect Tourism badly, but the cost of food and beverages, which are input costs to the hospitality industry, will increase, necessitating restaurants, hotels, and guest houses to increase their prices.  Due to competitive pressure, however,  this will have to be yet another increase the industry will have to absorb, to remain price competitive, especially as the winter season, with its extreme Cape Seasonality, starts in a short four weeks!

It is disappointing that no representative of Cape Town Tourism, Wesgro, SA Tourism, or the City of Cape Town’s Tourism, Events, and Marketing department have reacted to the petrol price increase, and the negative impact it will have on tourism!

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

False Bay Coastline Route: how feasible is it for provincial tourism?

The False Bay coastal region is set to receive a massive injection of marketing energy and funding to restore some neglected tourism areas to their former glory, and to develop new areas, to make the False Bay coastline attractive to tourists. The development plans may create a tourism conflict with existing tourism areas in the Western Cape.

Announced by Western Province Minister of Finance, Economic Development, and Tourism Minister Alan Winde earlier this week, the proposed False Bay Coastal Route is a masterplan his department has proposed, requiring a partnership agreement between the Department, the City of Cape Town, and the national Department of Tourism.

The Route is to stretch from Cape Point to Gordon’s Bay, and the Masterplan includes upgrading Muizenberg, Kalk Bay, and Fish Hoek, all once tourism meccas, which have become neglected over the past few years.   What is interesting, if not odd, is that the plan also includes the development of areas many would say are dangerous, including Mitchell’s Plain, Khayelitsha, Retreat, Strandfontein, Ocean View, Vrygrond, and Macassar, associated with unemployment and poverty, reports the Cape Argus, and therefore the residents of these areas would benefit from the development plans in creating employment. The beach resort Monwabisi is already being upgraded.  A feasibility study is underway, to evaluate the potential of the following tourism products:

*   South Peninsula wine route (Cape Point Vineyards is the only known wine producer in this region)

*   Shark watching

*   Whale watching

*   Scuba diving

*   Pleasure cruises between Gordon’s Bay and Simon’s Town

*   Shops, restaurants, nightclubs and taverns

*   Crafts

*   Guided cultural tours

Concerns have been expressed about the environmental affect of the development plans. Environmental impact assessments are said to be considerate of the sensitive dune system in this region. The employment benefit of the developments should not be ‘oversold‘, said Philip Bam of the Steenberg Retreat Civic Association.  From a guest house perspective we would caution guests from travelling east of Muizenberg on Baden Powell Drive, especially at night, and one questions how Minister Winde can see notorious suburbs such as Mitchell’s Plain and Khayelitsha having tourism potential, or perceive tourists to feel safe swimming at Monwabisi.  The Route to Gordon’s Bay cannot run along the coastline all the way, connecting to the N2 between the Stellenbosch and Strand turn-offs, making the ‘Coastal Route‘ name a misnomer.

“I am particularly excited about this project as it will bring in communities that were previously not given the opportunity to have a say in what becomes of their surroundings. The False Bay, Gordon’s Bay and Cape Point coastlines are among many other locations that we have earmarked for development. Similar projects are under way in the West Coast, Cape Aghulas, Lamberts Bay Bird Island and False Bay Ecology Park,” said the Minister.

From a provincial perspective it appears that the Minister’s plans for False Bay may impact on the whale watching industry in Hermanus and the shark industry in Gansbaai, and one must question how viable this is in these very tough tourism times.  One would hope that the Minister’s feasibility study will include an evaluation of the demand for tourists using the proposed developments east of Muizenberg – they may become another white elephant and a further burden for the Cape Town ratepayers, already lumbered with the unprofitable Cape Town Stadium.

While one understands the Minister’s concern for employment, the proposed False Bay Coastal Route falls within the Cape Town municipal boundaries, and therefore it is a surprise that the Minister is getting involved in what is a city issue, and not of benefit to his whole province.  The overall tourism benefit seems questionable. Focusing attention on the stimulation of tourism in the province in general, especially during the dreadful winter months, would be far more beneficial in creating employment for all in the Western Cape!

POSTSCRIPT 24/7: It was a shock to read in the Sunday Argus that Lynne Brown, ANC leader in the Western Cape legislature, and former Minister of Tourism before she became Premier, when the ANC ran the province, has accused Minister Winde of ‘stealing’ her plan of four years ago! She also accuses the Minister of plagiarising ‘almost word-for-word’ from her ‘Tourism 5-year Strategy’ document.  She said: ‘This is an ANC plan stolen from the ANC. Of course there is no acknowledgement at all and this is what makes it painful. I would personally like to see the DA carrying forward the ANC’s economic policy plan for the province because I believe that it was a good plan‘.  Ms Brown criticised Minister Winde for ‘nothing original‘ having been done for tourism by him, and for closing down Cape Town Routes Unlimited.

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

MasterChef episode 15: Blood, Sweat and Tears; Fishy in Paternoster, Khaya Silingile sauced out!

Last night’s episode 15 of MasterChef South Africa is one of the most beautifully filmed, on the beach of Paternoster, the ‘kreef town’ of South Africa, Sue-Ann Allen said.  The Red Team of Sarel Loots and the Blue Team led by last week’s dish winner Manisha Naidu had to cook their seafood platters on the beach. The Red Team lost the challenge and went into the Pressure Test, and Khaya Silingile had to leave MasterChef SA.

Chef Pete Goffe-Wood said that Paternoster is a ‘quaint West Coast village, a magnet for chefs passionate about seafood’.  He spoke about the South African Sustainable Seafood Initiative (SASSI), which educates consumers about buying seafood responsibly, and also to order it responsibly in restaurants. Unfortunately he did not explain it further, ‘green’ rated fish being in order to order and buy, while ‘orange’ and ‘red’ rated fish denotes fish varieties that are overfished and scarce, and should not be eaten.  To tie in with the programme, Woolworths flighted a commercial based on its fish offering, and also declared its SASSI responsibility.  The six Finalists were introduced to Chef Suzi Holtzhausen, who ran a cooking school in Johannesburg before moving to Paternoster eight years ago, where she runs a B&B and her restaurant Gaaitjie, beautifully located on the rocks at the edge of the beach.

The Finalists were divided into two teams, being allowed to choose their team members. Manisha chose Sue-Ann and Lungi Nhlahla for her Blue Team, while Sarel chose Deena Naidoo and Khaya for his Red Team.  They had to ‘celebrate West Coast local cuisine‘, and prepare in two hours a ‘Seafood Platter of a Lifetime’, with enough food for fifteen of Chef Suzi’s invited guests and ‘VIPs’, being locals of the fishing village.  The Blue Team chose to prepare grilled crayfish, marinated trout (an odd choice for a village catching its food from the sea), and fried calamari. Manisha chose to make a white wine sauce for her team’s fish dishes.  The team’s food was served first, and its food was described as being ‘nice and soft’ by a local, its prawns were liked, as were the oysters served with horseradish sauce. The Red Team also made prawns, deep fried calamari, yellowtail, asparagus, served with wasabi mayonnaise, tartar sauce, chilli sauce, lemon butter, and peri peri sauce.  Sarel had to gut the fish, and whilst doing so, he cut himself badly, and had to receive medical treatment.  Khaya and Deena carried on without him for a while, probably giving their team a knock.  The southeaster was blowing strongly, and Khaya tried to shield her team’s food from it.  The prawns and yellowtail were praised, the crayfish was said to be undercooked, and the good selection of sauces, especially the tartar sauce, was liked.  Manisha commented about how stressful it is to stand and wait for the voting.  Chef Suzi and her guests had to each vote, and the first team to obtain 8 votes was declared the winner, the honour bestowed upon the Blue Team.

The Red Team of Khaya, Sarel, and Deena went into the Pressure Test back at Nederburg, and they had to replicate the dish that won the silver medal at the Culinary Olympics in 1995, of which Chef Andrew Atkinson was a SA team member, and which he said took four years to perfect. It was a brioche encrusted Springbok loin, an asparagus tower with a mushroom and leek ragout, a peppadew relish, and served with a Béarnaise sauce infused with Rooibos tea, and charcoal and tomato pasta.  They had 2½ hours in which to replicate the dish.

Deena picked up a problem almost immediately, in that his Béarnaise sauce ‘split’, which he said ‘derailed my thought process‘, the first time we have really seen Deena worried.  He added that he was disappointed with himself, and said that ‘I don’t think I have performed adequately in this challenge’.  His sauce was said to resemble scrambled egg, his asparagus looked like a ‘leaning tower‘, the pasta was ‘spot on’ said Chef Andrew, with the right thickness and he could taste the roasted nutmeg. The asparagus lacked seasoning, and some of it was overcooked. Chef Benny Masekwameng praised the well-cooked relish. Sarel bumped his sore finger whilst preparing his dish, and said it throbbed in ‘ache and pain’. His Béarnaise sauce was prepared at too high a heat, and curdled.  The asparagus tower was praised, and all the spears were of the same length, Chef Pete said. The meat was described as ‘blue’ by Chef Pete, but Chef Andrew said that it was in order for game to be served rare. His ragout had  ‘just the right amount of balance’, and his dish was judged to be almost identical to that prepared by Chef Andrew, except for the sauce. Khaya made the pasta herself, saying it was not as easy as it looked. She admitted that she had never made Béarnaise sauce before, and her sauce ‘split’ too. The judges spoke amongst themselves about her preparation, saying that she had left things ‘to the last minute’ and that her pasta was too thick.  Her asparagus spears faced the wrong way, she was told by the judges, her asparagus tower looked like a ‘teepee’, not all the asparagus spears being of the same length. Chef Benny praised her for her meat being perfectly prepared but lacked some seasoning but this was counteracted by her spicy relish. Chef Pete found her meat dish to be ‘very bland’, not being able to taste the mustard under the crust. Chef Andrew added that the pasta was too thick, that the sauce had split, and that he could not taste the nutmeg.  She said that she was ‘content‘ with what she had prepared. As Khaya’s dish had the most errors, she was sent home, with words of praise for her passion, and she was encouraged to carry on with it. Chef Pete wished her well with her new family, having announced her pregnancy in episode 13.  She said that she enjoyed many highs and few lows in the programme, and that she had learnt patience by participating in MasterChef SA.  Her friend Lungi seemed more sad than Khaya herself, crying about her departure.

Exciting news is that Chef Michel Roux Jr, of two-star Michelin La Gavroche restaurant in London, is to be featured in episode 16 next week, conducting one of too few Masterclasses on the programme series.

POSTSCRIPT 27/6: Visiting Woolworths’ St John’s branch in Sea Point today, it was interesting to see their SASSI poster near the fresh fish section. Of concern, however, was that more than half of the fresh fish packs do not denote the SASSI sustainability colour rating. Of even greater concern is that they sell quite a lot of kingklip, rated ‘orange‘, defined as ‘conservation concern’ on its own in-store poster! They qualify ‘orange‘ fish, writing that ‘some ‘orange’ fish are caught when catching ‘green’ fish. This is known as bycatch. We only sell selected bycatch from well managed fisheries’! One wonders if kingklip qualifies as ‘bycatch‘. The poster also states that ‘Woolworths is working with its fish suppliers and WWF (World Wildlife Fund) to ensure sustainable seafood.’ It provides a cell number (079 499 8795) which one can sms to obtain the SASSI rating of any local fish type.

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

Wesgro’s marketing of Western Cape: around the world in 80 days already!

After having met Wesgro CEO Nils Flaatten two months ago, a week after he had taken over the responsibility for marketing the Western Cape from Cape Town Routes Unlimited, which organisation was incorporated into the trade and investment promotion agency on 2 April this year, we requested feedback about the progress made in marketing the region. Mr Flaatten had asked the industry to give him a month to get the organisational integration completed. An e-mail request for feedback on the marketing progress earlier this month led to an invitation by Mr Flaatten to meet with him on Tuesday.

The most exciting news for the local tourism industry, and Mr Flaatten’s first major challenge, is the 5 July meeting called with SAA’s General Manager Theuns Potgieter by Wesgro with 15 players in the Western Cape, including local and city government, an Eastern Cape tourism marketing body representative, and larger tourism companies, to discuss SAA’s decision to cut its Cape Town-London route as of 15 August. The airline will be asked to motivate its decision in culling the route.  Joint destination marketing between the Western Cape and SAA in bringing in tourists from destinations such as Beijing, Sao Paulo, Mumbai, Melbourne, various African destinations, and Buenos Aires will be discussed too.   Subsequent meetings will be held with the airlines which will continue to serve the Cape Town-London route, including BA, Virgin, and Emirates, to discuss bringing in more flights to Cape Town.

The parking organisation was perfect, and Mr Flaatten chose for us to go to Doppio Zero on St George’s Mall for the meeting.  He had copies of the slides which he used for his recent presentation at FEDHASA Cape’s AGM, which I had requested via his secretary, but the wait was worthwhile, as Mr Flaatten was able to explain his points in greater detail.  Mr Flaatten is a very precise person, and he referred repeatedly and proudly to the progress that he and his new team have made in the ‘two months and 19 days’ since their integration. In the past 80 days Wesgro has undertaken the following Marketing activities:

*   Mr Flaatten and Solly Fourie, Head of the Western Cape Department of Economic Development and Tourism, accompanied an (unnamed) Chairman of a JSE-listed hotel company to Buenos Aires, to meet six outbound tour operators. Mr Flaatten praised their product knowledge of the Western Cape. He said that the withdrawal of the Cape Town-Buenos Aires Air Malaysia route is a serious blow to tourism from Argentina. His journey from Cape Town to Buenos Aires via Johannesburg took 24 hours, previously a direct flight of 7 hours flying west.

*   Bjorn Hufkie from Wesgro’s Conventions Bureau accompanied the (unnamed) Managing Director of a JSE-listed hotel company to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait

*    Participated in exhibitions: Arabian Travel Market in Dubai, IMEX 2012 in Frankfurt (incentive travel, meetings and events); and Indaba in Durban. Mr Flaatten said that all six the RTOs were represented on the Western Cape stand, and that they will ‘raise the bar’ for 2013.

*   Debbie Damant has been part of SA Tourism’s marketing mission to China and Japan

*   Met with Cape Town Tourism, the largest RTO (regional tourism organisation) of the six in the Western Cape, asking some ‘tough questions’ of them

*   Met with Eden RTO, and some of its LTO’s (local tourism bureaus)

*   Met with SAA at Indaba (prior to SAA’s bombshell announcement about the Cape Town-London route)

*   The Western Cape Tourism Barometer for the fourth quarter of 2011 was released.

*   The Wesgro website has been updated, incorporating its new additional Destination Marketing role, clicking through to the tourism information previously on the Cape Town Routes Unlimited website

*  One of the greatest achievements is the detailed listing of over 100 events in the province in the next six months, with detailed information about each event

*   Organisationally, the activities and marketing focus of the six RTOs (Cape Town, West Coast, Eden, Cape Winelands, Central Karoo, and Overberg), and its tourism bureaus within the municipalities within the RTOs have been captured, within a Customer Relationship Management program.  An intensive Facebook campaign to interlink and like the LTOs and RTOs is underway.

Looking ahead for the next 10 months the focus will be to deliver on the Annual Performance Plan in respect of destination marketing; create operational efficiency, effectiveness and cost savings, which savings will go into the Events budget, Mr Flaatten said; fill staff vacancies; strengthening relationships with the RTO’s and LTO’s, international airlines operating from Cape Town International, tourism trade bodies, SA Tourism, and other national tourism bodies; ‘impactful marketing and advertising of the destination’, website integration and marketing strikes in respect of tour operators, to keep up the ‘share of mind’; aggressively market the Conventions Bureau, pushing conferences into the provincial towns and villages too; stimulate Events and fund smaller events; and SMME development.   Wesgro is pitching to host SIAL Cape Town, which would become a fantastic new food event creating a ‘Global Food Marketplace’, already held in Paris and China, and is planned to be hosted in our winter months, to address Seasonality.  The Western Cape Tourism Marketing Plan is expected to be ready by September.  Inter-provincial travel within the Western Cape will be an important focus.  Mr Flaatten was requested to provide feedback on what Wesgro is doing for the tourism industry as frequently as possible, all media communication to ourselves having been terminated since Wesgro took over.  We fed back that the Tourism Bureaus are not passing on Wesgro’s information to its members, which seemed to surprise him.

Mr Flaatten provided a copy of the latest Tourism Barometer, surprisingly signed off by Calvyn Gilfellan, former CEO of the ex-Cape Town Routes Unlimited. In the last quarter of last year 216000 international tourists arrived in Cape Town, a welcome increase of 15% over the same period a year before.  Domestic arrival growth was far lower in the same period, at 4%, with just under 1 million visitors.  A large part of the report contains statistics of visitor numbers to the province’s key tourism attractions, and to the RTO’s local tourism bureaus, a very unreliable tourism barometer, given that fewer visitors require the information or booking services of tourism bureaus, doing most of their bookings at home via the internet before their departure.

Organisationally, the integration between the ex-Cape Town Routes Unlimited staff is complete, section 197 of the Labour Relations Act having been followed, in that all staff (also the Wesgro staff) were offered staff benefits at the higher level of those offered by Wesgro and Cape Town Routes Unlimited, so that all Wesgro staff now receive the same benefits.  A Memorandum of Understanding, a Memorandum of Agreement, and a budget have been signed by the Joint Working Committee guiding the integration. The Annual Performance Plan of Cape Town Routes Unlimited has been transferred to Wesgro.   For the financial year April 2012/March 2013, Wesgro now has a total budget of just more than R51 million, 45% being for Cape Town Routes Unlimited funding.  All ex-Cape Town Routes Unlimited staff now have Wesgro contracts, e-mail addresses, and business cards.  Staff have been grouped by functionality and accommodated on the 7th and 12th floors of the Waldorf building.  Provincial Tourism Minister Alan Winde’s department is working on repealing the Tourism Act of 2004, which will close down the Board of the ex-Cape Town Routes Unlimited, which currently has to remain operative as long as the current Act is in place.

Wesgro needs to start from the beginning in gaining the confidence of its Western Cape tourism constituency, which had little faith in its predecessor Cape Town Routes Unlimited. The outcome of the 5 July SAA meeting will be a crucial test of its negotiating skills. In addition, it will be judged on its ability to communicate with the tourism industry on a regular basis, via traditional media channels as well as Social Media marketing.

Wesgro, Waldorf Arcade, 80 St George’s Mall, Cape Town.  Tel (021) 487-8600. www.wesgro.co.za Twitter: @Wesgro

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