{"id":24576,"date":"2011-09-03T00:22:03","date_gmt":"2011-09-02T22:22:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.whalecottage.com\/blog\/?p=24576"},"modified":"2011-09-18T18:40:49","modified_gmt":"2011-09-18T16:40:49","slug":"premier-zille-blamed-for-western-cape-tourism-crisis-fresh-new-cape-tourism-marketing-body-needed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chrisvonulmenstein.com\/blog\/cape-town\/premier-zille-blamed-for-western-cape-tourism-crisis-fresh-new-cape-tourism-marketing-body-needed\/","title":{"rendered":"Premier Zille blamed for Cape Tourism Crisis! Fresh new Cape Tourism Marketing body needed!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The\u00a0ANC’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.\u00a0 The party seems undecided\u00a0about the exact cause of the crisis.\u00a0 Just recently the ANC’s City of Cape Town Councillor Tony Ehrenreich blamed the exorbitant prices of crayfish and wines for the tourism crisis<\/a>!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Writing on Politicsweb<\/strong>, the ANC politicians state that it is the ‘DA’s politicking’\u00a0that caused the underfunding of tourism.\u00a0\u00a0 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’<\/em>, they write (the budget goes to the marketing of Cape Town only).\u00a0 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\u00a0finds itself in now’<\/em>.\u00a0 From having been the top tourist destination for local tourists,\u00a0the Western Cape\u00a0has slipped to fourth position.\u00a0\u00a0 They blame the DA for playing ‘political football’<\/em> with an industry that has an important job creation responsibility.\u00a0 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\u00a0like hotels and restaurants underutilised<\/em>‘, they write.\u00a0 ‘Today we see a fragmented\u00a0and scattered messaged marketing plan which is very dangerous to the industry’<\/em>,\u00a0 they write in poor English.\u00a0 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’<\/em>, and they call for an Indaba to allow the transformation of the industry.<\/p>\n

During\u00a0Ms Zille’s tenure as Mayor of Cape Town, the Mayoral Committee member for Tourism, Simon Grindrod,\u00a0appointed a consultancy to analyse the success of Cape Town Routes Unlimited, and found the organisation to not be meeting its\u00a0brief adequately.\u00a0 He\u00a0motivated 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\u00a0constitution, to allow\u00a0Cape Town Tourism\u00a0to take on the marketing of Cape Town in addition to offering Visitor Information Services.\u00a0\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

We absolutely agree with the ANC that the Marketing Plan is poor (being ‘dangerous’, <\/em>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\u00a0their website.\u00a0\u00a0Ms Brown appears to have\u00a0forgotten 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\u00a0 ‘100 Women 100 Wines’ competition.<\/strong>)<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

The poor tourism performance since the World Cup cannot be laid at the door of Premier Zille, but rather must be blamed on\u00a0the recession, the\u00a0excessive rates charged by FIFA’s MATCH agency, \u00a0and the oversupply of accommodation, developed to cash in on the world’s largest sporting event.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 This led to the appointment of a PR Manager and an e-Marketing Manager.\u00a0 Burton left Cape Town Tourism at the end of June this year, but had already changed\u00a0her relationship with the organisation to that of a consultant from the beginning of this year, meaning that Cape Town Tourism has been\u00a0anchorless as far as Marketing goes for the last eight months,\u00a0at a\u00a0time when the tourism industry slid into crisis mode, without Cape Town Tourism picking this up.\u00a0\"\"<\/a> 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\u00a0detailed by Cape Town Tourism.\u00a0 Whilst surprising for someone in e-Marketing position, it may be\u00a0a good thing that she has only written\u00a0four Tweets on her Twitter account to date, given the excessive time spent on Twitter\u00a0by Cape Town Tourism’s PR Manager!<\/p>\n

We doubt\u00a0that the newly appointed Executive Marketing Manager Velma Corcoran\u00a0will 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.\u00a0 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\u00a0in Cape Town, and her turn of phrase in such a senior position\u00a0is not impressive (she still has her ex-employer profile on Twitter!):\u00a0“EVERYTHING about <\/em>#<\/span>SAA<\/span><\/em><\/a> makes me grumpy, miserable and pissed off. They seem to take pleasure in making it difficult”.<\/em> <\/span>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\u00a0strong urban brand positioning to grow demand for Cape Town locally and globally.\u00a0 The tourism market is facing considerable challenges at the moment, and competitive and commercial experience was a prerequisite for this position’.<\/em> <\/span>We wonder then why Cape Town Tourism needs an Australian Strategetic consultant<\/a>, <\/span><\/strong> when it has employed a local brand strategist.\u00a0 Interesting is that Cape Town Tourism announced the appointment last week\u00a0of ad agency Ogilvy, not waiting until Mrs Corcoran started her new job\u00a0on Thursday, so that she could\u00a0give the appointment\u00a0her blessing and approval, given her agency background! <\/span><\/p>\n

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\u00a0with Cape Town Tourism, as many tourism players do not believe that they are doing a satisfactory job in marketing Cape Town.\u00a0\u00a0 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.<\/div>\n

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POSTSCRIPT 13\/9<\/strong>: \u00a0We have removed the content of the comment by Mavis Wilken, under threat of legal action by Webber Wentzel, lawyers of Cape Town Tourism. \u00a0On 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.<\/div>\n

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POSTSCRIPT 15\/9<\/strong>: \u00a0We 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). \u00a0In addition, the letter demands again, but not actioned by us, that we apologise to Mrs Helmbold for Mavis Wilken’s alleged ‘defamatory comment<\/em>‘, that we promise never to write any ‘defamatory’<\/em> 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!<\/div>\n

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POSTSCRIPT 15\/9<\/strong>: \u00a0We have written an Open Letter to Mr Ian Bartes,<\/a><\/strong><\/span> 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!<\/div>\n

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com<\/a> Twitter@WhaleCottage<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The\u00a0ANC’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.\u00a0 The party seems undecided\u00a0about the exact cause of the crisis.\u00a0 Just recently the ANC’s City of Cape Town Councillor Tony Ehrenreich blamed the exorbitant prices of crayfish and wines […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false},"categories":[3,124,22,21],"tags":[12566,32367,1317,1233,32366,108,85,13126,32378,257,1484,1267,13128,18,13131,27,2383,4031,7843,13129,2999,13132,435,340,23,13290,1780,13313,13134,8633,13127,7639,727,13,759,514,13133,13314,1277,5,12510,1587,13130,12012,11642,32387,163,32373,365,531],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t