{"id":5957,"date":"2009-12-28T11:32:26","date_gmt":"2009-12-28T09:32:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.whalecottage.com\/blog\/?p=5957"},"modified":"2010-02-05T17:17:51","modified_gmt":"2010-02-05T15:17:51","slug":"dmo-causes-a-whale-of-a-tourism-splash-in-hermanus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chrisvonulmenstein.com\/blog\/whale-cottage-portfolio\/dmo-causes-a-whale-of-a-tourism-splash-in-hermanus\/","title":{"rendered":"DMO causes a whale of a tourism splash in Hermanus"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The tourism industry in Hermanus and related towns\u00a0is up in arms about the new Cape Whale Coast Destination Marketing Organisation (DMO), a body which was formed more than a year ago to market the whale coast from Rooi Els to Gansbaai.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Whilst the mandate of the\u00a0DMO is to market the Whale Coast, with monies supplied from the Overstrand municipality, generated from rates\/taxes\/levies on tourism businesses,\u00a0according to its constitution, the\u00a0DMO now is opening up an\u00a0information kiosk in Hermanus, from which they will be taking bookings.\u00a0 To receive such bookings, members of the Hermanus Tourism Bureau, and other bureaux along the coast,\u00a0must become members of the DMO as well, at an additional R 600 annual membership fee.<\/p>\n

The irony is that the Hermanus Tourism Bureau had to send out the e-mail to its members, inviting membership of the DMO, offering such benefits as a discounted cost to distribute members’ marketing material at trade shows and for marketing and advertising projects, free listing on the Whale Coast website, and free brochure and collage display at the new Market Square Info kiosk, in competition to itself.\u00a0\u00a0 These should be standard benefits to members of the Hermanus Tourism Bureau.<\/p>\n

The criteria for membership state that one must pay the DMO a commission of 12 % (this is an unusually high rate, as 10 % is the norm.\u00a0Cape Town Tourism charges 11 %) ; that one must be a member of a tourism bureau in the Cape Whale Coast area; and that one’s property must have a departure or zoning.<\/p>\n

This means that all existing tourism bureau members, paying a membership fee to the Hermanus Tourism Bureau of R 520 for a medium-sized guesthouse\/B&B must now pay another R 600 to the DMO to receive bookings from the new kiosk, in competition to the Tourism Bureau’s offices in Mitchell Street!\u00a0\u00a0 The Overstrand tourism bureaux receive a small grant from the DMO, out of its annual budget of R 2,5 million, and\u00a0they are therefore\u00a0reliant on making up the rest of\u00a0their funding from the commission\u00a0they receive for bookings made.\u00a0 This is a serious threat to their\u00a0funding, in Hermanus in particular, as the tourism bureau is not close to the whale watching spots.<\/p>\n

According to the Constitution of the Cape Whale Coast DMO, all business owners paying rates and taxes are automatically members:\u00a0 “Member” means a registered owner of an erf on which assessment rates are payable due to business which may, or is being conducted on that erf and such rates have been paid to the Municipality for the previous municipal financial year (or current financial year for 2007\/8), and\/or a person who is paying rental on that erf”.<\/em>\u00a0 This means that all ratepayers are members automatically, and cannot therefore be double-charged!<\/span><\/p>\n

The DMO Constitution lists 21 objectives that the DMO must meet, and one of them says: “to maintain<\/em> effective tourism bureaus in the region”.<\/em>\u00a0 It does not have an objective to\u00a0create its own tourism bureaus, or to be booking agent, according to its Constitution.\u00a0 Its role is a Marketing one predominantly.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If the Cape Whale Coast DMO is modelled on Cape Town Routes Unlimited, the provincial marketing body, which is also a destination marketing organisation, then it is making a mistake!\u00a0\u00a0Cape Town Routes Unlimited does not have members, and does not take bookings – it leaves this to Cape Town Tourism and all other tourism bureaux in the province.\u00a0\u00a0 It is\u00a0a marketing body and focuses on marketing the Western Cape province.\u00a0 This is what the Cape Whale Coast DMO should be doing too.<\/p>\n

A further gripe is that the Whale Coast DMO spends too much of its budget on publications and advertising, and too little on web-driven marketing.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 One of\u00a0the DMO’s\u00a0stated objectives is to “develop and maintain a world-class website” – this objective has not been met, as the website\u00a0can not be called world class.<\/p>\n

Of even greater concern is that Clinton Lerm, of the Misty Waves Hotel in Hermanus, is the Chairman of the Hermanus Tourism Bureau, and of the Cape Whale Coast DMO, which means that any concerns that members of the Hermanus Tourism Bureau have about this or any other arrangement relating to the DMO cannot be fairly\u00a0dealt with, due to the conflict of interests.\u00a0\u00a0Lerm and his mother Maxie put up a strong fight to be elected to the board of the DMO, which raised many hackles at the time.\u00a0 Maxie Lerm is in charge of the\u00a0Public Relations of the DMO, which should not be handled by Board members.\u00a0 The promise that a full-time\u00a0CEO would\u00a0manage the DMO, as per the Constitution, within a year of establishment of the DMO,\u00a0has not been met.<\/p>\n

The Cape Whale Coast website www.whalecoast.info<\/a>\u00a0shows another conflict of interest, in that the Lerm’s Misty Waves Hotel is featured in an ad on the Hermanus page, and is listed\u00a0on the right hand side of the page as well.\u00a0\u00a0 Further ads for Misty Waves Hotel appear on the Home page, the Resources page, the News page and the About page.\u00a0 \u00a0At no\u00a0stage since its inception\u00a0has the DMO offered members of the Tourism Bureaux the opportunity to place ads on the website.\u00a0 All other accommodation properties are listed by name over 4 pages, with a street address and telephone number, if one clicks onto a general\u00a0Accommodation page.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Cape Whale Coast\u00a0proudly lists Fernkloof Nature Reserve as the first of its “Resources” – the nature reserve has seen four bad attacks on hikers in the past few months, and the one\u00a0on a Canadian couple, who are ex-South Africans, earlier this\u00a0week has been communicated around the world, not being to the PR benefit of Hermanus at all!<\/p>\n

A further oddity is that the Hermanus Tourism Bureau does not have one conglomerate website, but has various websites for accommodation, restaurants, activities, and arts, e.g. www.hermanusaccommodation.com<\/a>, www.hermanusrestaurants.com<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0 The Bureau says it is working on building one website for all its separate parts, which would give it far greater search engine optimisation.<\/p>\n

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio :\u00a0www.whalecottage.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The tourism industry in Hermanus and related towns\u00a0is up in arms about the new Cape Whale Coast Destination Marketing Organisation (DMO), a body which was formed more than a year ago to market the whale coast from Rooi Els to Gansbaai.\u00a0\u00a0 Whilst the mandate of the\u00a0DMO is to market the Whale Coast, with monies supplied […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false},"categories":[124,75,22,21,241],"tags":[3113,32378,2992,3119,3118,3120,1565,32377,595,1021,3115,3114,3116,2990,3117,32373],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\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\n\t\t