Tag Archives: Whale Cottage Camps Bay

Breach of employment contract: an open letter to our ex-Manager Charmaine Maritz

Dear Charmaine

Your walk-out from our employment at Whale Cottage Camps Bay twelve days ago without resignation, on the day that you saw the salary in your bank account, is the worst blow to any employer, especially given the good relationship we enjoyed in the eight months in which you worked for us.  We appointed you when your previous employment at the White Lodge Guest House in Constantia had run out (they are shocked at your claim that they reneged on a contract, as there was none) due to the severity of the recession last winter.  We took a chance on you, despite the financial pressure on our business at that time, and you were an excellent receptionist, with the potential to grow into the rest of your job description of Manager.

As you left without notice, despite our meeting appointment for the day of your sudden departure, we have chosen to communicate to you via this blogpost how we view your behaviour, not deserved given how well we looked after you, with a salary increase after six months, giving you three days off to attend a family wedding in Queenstown when we were fully booked and couldn’t spare you but found a locum for you, and regular invitations to you, your family, and your boyfriend to the theatre and restaurants. You regularly expressed to us and to others how much you enjoyed your job. In retrospect, little signs of a recent change in your behaviour – your breaking of our rules, taking an afternoon off when we had guests checking in, wanting to delegate your duties to two unreliable housekeepers while you went to the wedding, and more – were evident.

You can imagine our shock when a guest house colleague in Camps Bay called a week prior to your walk-out to tell us that he had received your application for a job, as must have most hotels in Cape Town, and in which you dishonestly called yourself our ‘General Manager’. When you sent out your CV to more than 100 hotels last winter, no one except ourselves responded. We appointed you immediately.  At no time did you express any dissatisfaction or desire to grow your spectrum of tasks, which we would have happily delegated to you. On the day before your departure you asked me for copies of your salary slips, and lied as to the reason why you needed them.  We had thought that you were the most honest staff member until that day, and given the information from our guest house colleague, this request was a further confirmation about your job search.  We asked someone to call you on the pretense of inviting you to a job interview, and you announced that you had accepted a job that day at a hotel in Claremont.

Given this information, we met with you at the end of that day, and read through the employment contract with you, specifically the clause relating to the calendar month’s notice that you had agreed to, and we confirmed by additional contract in the meeting, which you signed, that your last day of employment would be 30 April, as per the contract.  Under pressure and in tears you told us that you were starting at your new employer three days later.  We discussed that you had made a mistake in accepting the new job on this date, and that you would have to tell them that you could only start on 1 May, and we even offered to try and find a replacement for you at the end of March to assist you, at our own expense.  We highlighted to you your dishonesty in lying to us, and your secretiveness in sending out the application for all hotels to see (not sending the application by blind copy), and in not honouring your employment contract.  You told us that the reason for the job search was the pressure from your boyfriend Ian Little, who had to drive you to and back from work every day as you do not drive, due to the increasing cost of the petrol between Plumstead and Camps Bay.  We promised to discuss with you the next day how we could enlarge your range of duties, for more pay, to cover the increased petrol costs.  You did not even have a letter of resignation to give us, and you promised to contact the new employer about the delay in starting with them.  The next morning you saw the salary payment, and dropped to the level of a housekeeper by sending us a text message saying that you had dropped your keys at the guest house and had left our employment (we were fully booked and you left the guest house management to the housekeepers, without even saying goodbye to them), giving yourself the weekend off, and causing chaos at the guest house, the staff bursting into tears when we had to tell them that you had absconded from our employment without notice, resignation, and farewell.  Only later that morning you sent an e-mail with a letter of immediate resignation, in breach of your employment contract.

Your parents in Queenstown were devastated to hear about your dishonesty, having seen you as a trustworthy and honest daughter, even though they had seen the negative influence on your behaviour since you moved to Cape Town with your boyfriend. Your father was ready to drive to Cape Town to come and fetch you, but didn’t have enough money for the petrol.  Your new boss and co-owner Nicolene Barrow at the 5-star The Andros Boutique Hotel in Claremont was speechless when we called her and told her about your breach of our employment contract, given that you had lied to her in saying that we had given your leaving us our blessing! We are surprised that you moved for a lesser position at the same salary that we were paying, to save a few Rands in petrol. It is shocking that a colleague in the hospitality industry could be so naive and opportunistic to expect the appointment of a new member of staff with two days notice to the previous employer.  For a person who moved to Cape Town from Queenstown last year, job hopping after 3 months and then 8 months for two jobs does not look good on your CV.

At 25 years you are relatively young, but we could not believe that you are so naive as to :

*  blatantly breach our employment contract and the additional contract which you signed about your date of departure, clearly showing that you have no respect for the law of contract, and have no business ethics and honesty at all, not being trustworthy for any future employer

*   expect our co-operation for paperwork from us

*   expect any positive future references for any prospective employer, given that we are one of your four hospitality employers

*   think that we would not have warned your new employer

*   think that we have not shared our experiences with your previous employers White Lodge Guest House, and the Heritage Guest House in Queenstown.

Any prospective employer should know that they are not only appointing you but also your boyfriend, manipulating you in the background. His invitation to connect on Linked-In, to ‘coffee dates’ and dinners, and his other attempts to become my ‘friend’ were totally inappropriate and unwelcome.  Even since your departure he is communicating with us, as if he is your manager or representative.  We did not appoint him.

Wanting to share the outcome of our subsequent negotiations, in which you admitted the breach of your contract, I called The Andros Boutique Hotel yesterday, and asked to speak to Ms Barrow.  Your new colleague Steyn Venter called back aggressively on behalf of Ms Barrow, threatening legal action should your hotel’s name be mentioned in this blogpost.  What a shame that we cannot share with her the final outcome of our negotiations with you, which should be of interest to her as your current employer.

You will pay the price of your dishonesty for many years to come, and you probably already regret your selfish and short-sighted action, which has cost you your reputation and a lot of money in paying out our contract, money which could have got you to Camps Bay for a number of years yet!

We are sharing this letter with the hospitality industry, not only as a warning about any potential future employment of you, but also to share with hospitality employers the rights that they have to have their employment contract honoured, even if it is financially after a departure, which we are happy to share with them privately.  It is also a reminder to hospitality employers that all staff are legally obliged to give and work out their notice, and there is a moral obligation to do so too, given that no business can operate with a sudden departure of a staff member without a hand-over and the replacement of that staff member, as we all know!

We salute our labour advisor Gerald Jacobs for his excellent advice, and the luck of finding locum Lily Lello, who came to our rescue two days later, allowing us to honour our guest bookings in Franschhoek, and to continue operating our Whale Cottage Camps Bay, both operations which could have been jeopardised by your walk-out.

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

Portfolio Collection sale excellent news for accommodation establishments!

It was a surprise to receive a forwarded e-mail yesterday about the sale of the Portfolio Collection, started by Liz Westby-Nunn 30 years ago, to Moja Media, effective next week.  Many accommodation owners who still advertise in the publication will heave a huge sigh of relief!

Mrs Westby-Nunn started a series of three accommodation publications to market her own property Klippe Rivier outside Swellendam, and encouraged other properties to join her on this joint marketing venture.  Her link to the guest house was never revealed, but it was obvious once one knew about it, in that it featured prominently in the little marketing Mrs Westby-Nunn did for her Portfolio Collection client properties.

In the days prior to the establishment of the Tourism Grading Council of South Africa and the internet, the only publication in which one could launch one’s accommodation establishment was by advertising in the Portfolio B&B Collection, and almost every accommodation establishment which started in the last twenty years advertised in this publication.  In those days a third-page advertisement already cost over R10000 per annum, and with it came a prescribed annual inspection that made every guest house owner’s stress levels soar.  Portfolio has a four-shield quality rating system, and Mrs Westby-Nunn lost many a client over fights about the colour of the shield awarded, especially if there was a downgrade over time.  Her assessors were mostly super, and very good in providing suggestions for what could be improved to maintain the shield colour.  Theresa Katz became a friend to many establishment owners in the Western Cape, and she was an important buffer between advertisers and Mrs Westby-Nunn, who did not speak to her advertisers directly, if she could help it!  Mrs Westby-Nunn had no interest in building a relationship with her advertisers, and if one received a call from her one knew one was in terrible trouble, usually as a result of a guest complaint.

The Portfolio Collection consisted of three books: Country Places Collection (to which she added Private Game Reserves, and properties in other Southern African countries to justify publishing this book, and in which one was forced to take a full page advertisement at an exorbitant fee); the Retreats Collection (which was for properties with more than 5 bedrooms, and one was forced to take an half-page ad); and the B&B Collection, which was costing close to R20000 for a third page ad recently.  She influenced the fortune of many a guest house, including our own, in prescribing that no B&B was allowed to be bigger than five rooms, or else one had to advertise in the far more expensive Retreats Collection, yet this was only on invitation by Mrs Westby-Nunn, meaning that she controlled the expansion in size and the marketing of the more upmarket properties. As our Whale Cottage Camps Bay had five guest rooms, we had to buy another house in Bakoven close by, with five rooms as well, to meet her prescriptive requirements.

The final straw for many advertisers came when the internet became increasingly used in accommodation marketing and bookings, and Mrs Westby-Nunn became greedy when she developed a website for her publications, listing each advertiser property on it, and then taking a 10 % commission for each booking received in addition to the advertising fee one had paid to be in her publications! Members of the Camps Bay guest house accommodation association called a meeting with Mrs Westby-Nunn’s GM, Donald Paul, a journalist who lasted at the company for less than two months, being totally unsuited to the job.   Mr Paul was unable to appease the members of the association, and appeared to have tape recorded the entire discussion without our knowledge and permission, producing perfect minutes of the meeting without taking notes during the meeting.  Members were adamant that they should not pay commission, which was not in the contract. Advertisers were subsequently forced to immediately sign a contract amendment agreeing to the commission payment, or face exclusion from the publication and the website.   Despite the establishment of the Tourism Grading Council and it awarding stars for the quality of each establishment, Mrs Westby-Nunn stuck to her colour shield grading system, and reluctantly allowed the Tourism Grading Council star grading to be featured in her publications as well.

Mrs Westby-Nunn worked hard at marketing her publications initially, and even got herself voted onto the SA Tourism Board, and became its Chairman, which meant that she got her publications into every SA Tourism office around the world, which was excellent for her advertisers.  We remember the days when our guests arrived clutching a Portfolio book, then the accommodation bible.  However, Portfolio’s competitors soon rushed off to the Department of Tourism, to complain about the unfair advantage Portfolio was enjoying, and Mrs Westby-Nunn soon lost the distribution advantage, and her position on the SA Tourism board.  When Mrs Westby-Nunn had a dispute with us, we bravely decided to leave the publication, and to market our Whale Cottage Portfolio (the name was chosen in ‘honour’ of Mrs Westby-Nunn’s business) ourselves!  Mrs Westby-Nunn fired clients that challenged her, including a Hout Bay lawyer-owned guest house, which had taken the publication to court over the definition of ‘Atlantic Seaboard’, a case which she lost.  Another guest house in Stellenbosch started a legal fund to fight the publication about the commission charged on internet bookings, and they too were not allowed to advertise again.  We have never looked back in not advertising in Portfolio, and over time we have seen more and more establishments not renew their advertising due to the ever increasing cost of the advertising (20 % annual increases were the norm for many years), and due to the way that they were treated.  Leaving Portfolio meant that we could expand our Whale Cottage Camps Bay to 11 rooms, and sell our Whale Cottage Bakoven.  Most guest houses have been too afraid to speak up and disagree with Portfolio, knowing that they too would be fired as clients if they disagreed with any Portfolio directive.

The tables turned for Mrs Westby-Nunn when guest houses realised that they could market their guest houses equally well, especially via their own websites, and when the Tourism Grading Council became the accepted standard for accommodation quality assessment.  The three Portfolio booklets reduced in size year on year, as Portfolio too was affected by the recession.  Mrs Westby-Nunn’s customer-unfriendly interaction, if there was any, with her clients, and the appointment of her sister as an assessor for the Western Cape after Miss Katz had left cost her many advertisers.  Her business has reduced to such an extent that the company had to amalgamate all three publications into one book this year, with only 495 establishment advertisers, to save face. The Portfolio B&B Collection used to have 500 advertisers alone in the past.   Portfolio’s pay-off line ‘Benchmark of the Best’ became increasingly misleading, as top establishments withdrew their advertising, and the Tourism Grading Council became the accommodation quality benchmark in South Africa. It was evident that Mrs Westby-Nunn was looking to get out of her business, having put her Klippe Rivier property up for sale some time ago.

One has not heard of the new Portfolio publisher, and it will be interesting to see how the new owners will deal with the negative image of the company that they have just purchased.  A new Portfolio iPad app. is to be launched shortly, says the company’s media release.

POSTSCRIPT 23/2: We received the following e-mail from James Delaney, one of the two directors of Moja Media, the purchasers of Portfolio: “You may not remember me, but many years ago I think you were my marketing lecturer at UCT! I read your blog about Portfolio Collection this morning, and thanks – it all helps to understand what has not worked in the past. We’ve bought Portfolio because we believe in the brand, but we’re looking at many different ways of improving things going forward. I hope they get your favourable review over time.  I’ve been in tourism for many years now, I was involved with the launch of Welgevonden, built and ran Shangana Cultural Village, been a consultant on tourism projects like Cradle of Humankind and Constitution Hill, launched the Moja Heritage Collection, and now as Moja Media have been building up a stable of tourism publications (print and online). So I do know some of the marketing challenges which lie ahead, and am looking forward to making my contribution”.

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

Looking forward: 2012 a year of change

Looking at 2012, I consulted some Numerology sites, and I was reminded of the prediction that the world will end on 21 December this year, an interesting focus to start the year with, and encouraging one to make the most of this year. Adding up the numbers in 2012, giving a total of 5, the emphasis this year will be one of Change, Change and Change, as one site wrote.  A political change is forecast for the USA, more natural disasters are predicted, and the world economy looks to remain shaky.  We enter the Year of the Dragon later this month, being the 5th and a very powerful sign in the Chinese calendar, signalling change, power, and improvement.

What does that mean for us:

*  Tourism from Europe and the UK will remain depressed.  German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in her New Year’s Eve address last night that this year will be even tougher than last year, but she has promised to do everything in her power to stabilise the Euro, introduced ten years ago today, and to build a stronger bond in the European Union.  The UK market is likely to remain depressed, and no great increase in tourism numbers can be expected, with the exception of February, a popular travel month for Britons who like to get away from a bitterly cold winter, and who like to celebrate ‘Valentine’s Month’ in the Cape.  Bookings for February already look promising for Whale Cottage Camps Bay.  August has become a relatively good tourism month, despite it still being winter, with many Europeans coming on holiday.  This year this period coincides with the Olympic Games in London, which may reduce tourism numbers in the first half of the month.

*   South Africans will remain the foundation of tourism this year, and the summer season will end early, with Easter falling on the first weekend of April. However, there are six public holidays falling on weekdays this year, and these are normally good for tourism business.  A 5-day long weekend, from 27 April to 1 May, could be a last summer highlight for the hospitality industry.

Other predictions we would like to see become reality are the following:

*   Cape Town Tourism and Cape Town Routes Unlimited being amalgamated in one private sector driven body, to prevent the current duplication of marketing activity and spend, with sharper strategic and marketing thinking.  Cape Town Routes Unlimited will be incorporated into Wesgro in April. There is no sign of the new Cape Town Tourism “You don’t need a holiday, you need Cape Town” campaign or its effect, which was launched locally with great fanfare at the AGM in October, and internationally at World Travel Market in London in November.  Any work that Cape Town Tourism’s UK trade and media representative may be doing is not bearing fruit.  Its Australian consultant Ian Macfarlane seems to have vanished, his contract having ended last month.  Cape Town Tourism CEO Mariette du Toit-Helmbold is on maternity leave, and one can speculate that no marketing of Cape Town will happen until she returns, if the past month is anything to go by. We would like to see a greater transparency by Cape Town Tourism in how it is spending its members’ and Cape Town ratepayers monies (R40 million), information which Mrs Helmbold has refused to release to date!

*   A new Eat Out editor and Top 10 restaurant judge, given that the current incumbent has lost credibility, and a fairer and transparent judging process.

*   Better support of Cape Town and Winelands restaurants by locals, especially in winter, when unbelievable specials are offered

*   Better service in restaurants, shops, and in any other businesses dealing with the public.  Franschhoek, for example, is fast losing its professional image due to poorly trained staff, often left to their own devices, without any management support.

*   Better ability of businesses to accept service and other feedback, in the interest of improving things, rather than to be defensive and vindictive about it.

*   A longer life for new restaurants, which means that they need to do better research to understand their market and potential diners before opening, and must build loyalty.

*  A reorientation of when the country goes on holiday, and its bosses in particular.  It seems crazy that businesses close on 15 December for 2 – 3 weeks, and that hospitality and tourism bureau management goes on leave, at a time when business is at its peak, instead of in winter, when business is at its poorest!

*   A total revamp of labour legislation (a big dream, I know!), in discouraging employee departures without giving notice, greater checking of employee references, the development of a register of unreliable staff to the benefit of all employers, and a better balance in the rights of employers.  If there is one aspect of business that most owners complain about and are most influenced by in terms of service delivery it is staff. Such changes may lead to higher employment.

*   A better rates dispensation by municipalities, to recognise that most accommodation establishments and other tourism businesses operate at 50 % occupancy at best in winter, yet must pay rates in full.

*   More responsible reporting about the state of tourism in the Cape by the media and tourism bodies, and to not exaggerate its status.

*   More responsible behaviour in terms of the effect that our lifestyle has on climate change, the negative effects of which were well demonstrated in 2011.

*   More kindness and niceness to others, putting the ‘social’ back into Social Media!

We wish all our guests, suppliers, staff, tourism colleagues, friends, and readers a successful, healthy, and bubbly 2012!

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

Cape Town festive season tourism up on 2010

Cape Town is bursting at the seams, and will get even fuller from today onwards, when international visitors fly into the city after their Christmas celebrations with their families.  While the occupancy for the festive season (i.e. Christmas – 8 January) is improved, the overall occupancy for December is on a par with that of last December.

The Cape Argus front page story headline ‘Tourists pour into Cape’ was based on a 4% increase in domestic arrivals in November, relative to the year before, and is therefore sensationalist and incorrect. Expectations of the Table Mountain Aerial Cableway Company (100000 visitors estimated for December) and the V&A Waterfront (3 million visitors expected in December) are optimistic, but comparative 2010 figures are not provided .   The newspaper, which also reported a 14% increase in international arrivals on 21 December, relative to the ‘last festive season’, appears to be confused about the definition of the ‘festive season’, seen by the industry as only starting with Christmas, and running until the day before the first working day in January (as early as 3 January, or 9 January for most).

The article also quoted Cape Town Tourism in saying that the arrival statistics were not reflected in the occupancy levels of accommodation establishments in the city, many arrivals staying with friends and family.  Cape Town Tourism’s market research methods have been dubious in the past, and do not appear to reflect that many international visitors now own a house or apartment in the Cape.  The tourism body spokesperson Skye Grove also blamed price sensitivity for hotels and guest houses not being fully booked, due the ‘current economic conditions’. One wonders how Cape Town Tourism drew this conclusion, without interviewing tourists.   She also blames the unfilled beds on the 40 % increased room capacity in the past four years, in preparation for the 2010 World Cup, with a current total bed availability of 60 000 in greater Cape Town, she said.  Ms Grove did not mention the feedback about Cape Town having become an expensive destination.  She also said that tourists are “looking for added value and expect excellent service. They are, more than ever, prepared to shop around for the best deal when it comes to experiences, food, drinks and accommodation”.

The competing tourism body Cape Town Routes Unlimited provided a different statistic, its CEO Calvyn Gilfellan saying that 20 % more beds had been added in the past two years, and his body expected a ‘slight return to normality’, without a definition thereof.  He warned the industry to not overcharge: “Competition is tough, people know they have to be realistic with their rates”. Alan Winde, Western Cape Minister of Tourism and Finance, echoed Gilfellan, in stating that there would be a slight improvement in visitor numbers, but he warned the tourism industry to ‘…don’t expect fireworks’.  He added: “The market is tough and is going to become even more competitive, so we have to up our game. Quality and service will set us apart from the rest”.

Whale Cottage Camps Bay is likely to finish December with an occupancy of 70 %, slightly up on December 2010, but a huge drop from the 90+% occupancy of December 2007 – 2009.  What is different is that the guest house is fully booked for the Christmas days, which is an improvement on the past years. However, the first two weeks of December were much quieter than in the past.  A similar pattern is evident in Franschhoek, although the occupancy level for the month is below 20%, while occupancy in Hermanus is much reduced relative to last December.  The Mount Nelson Hotel is not full at the moment, but will fill up later this week, one of the managers told me yesterday.

For Cape Town to be a world class city offering quality service, as per the call by Minister Winde, restaurants should be encouraged to open on Christmas Day, and particularly in the evening. Kloof Street is a restaurant street boasting 35 restaurants, of which only three were open yesterday evening, two of them being franchise restaurants, and Mason’s being filled with tourists staying in the Tamboerskloof and Gardens areas.  The service at Mason’s was particularly slow, the owner apologetically saying that all his staff had called in sick, so patrons had to expect a 25 minute waiting time for food (my cappuccino took this long to make too). Poor spelling on their Christmas dinner menu does not give our city a professional image.

Newspaper headlines about the tourism season should wait until the festive season has ended, and should be based on reliable information, journalists having to be responsible in their information sources. Cape Town tourism bodies should be professional in conducting their market research!  The increased tourism numbers, mainly domestic tourists, do not seem to be the result of any marketing efforts by Cape Town Tourism or by Cape Town Routes Unlimited. Cape Town Tourism launched its ‘You don’t need a holiday, you need Cape Town’ campaign to huge fanfare at the World Travel Market in London and at its AGM in the past two months, but the campaign seems to have run out of steam, and is not visible in any media.

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