Whale Cottage Portfolio Blog

A 5 000-bottle wine library is set to open in the One&Only Cape Town in the V&A Waterfront on 3 April, showcasing the largest wine collection in the South African hospitality industry, reports the Cape Times.

The Wine Loft will offer 100 wines by the glass, select older vintages, as well as wines from new wineries.   Tasting sessions will also be held, and will be complemented by tapas dishes from the next-door Gordon Ramsay maze restaurant. 

The wine list was compiled on the basis of terroir and regional wine styles, rather than on brand name, says One&Only Group  Sommelier Stephen Towler.    The Wine Loft will stock 450 local and 150 international wines, and “there will be wines for every budget”.

A comprehensive two-day conference on wine tourism will be held at the Vineyard Hotel in Cape Town on 21and 22 July, with the theme of “Share, innovate, inspire”.

Trends and best practices in the $15 billion global wine tourism industry will form the spotlight of the 2009 South African Wine Tourism Conference, with topics including the proposed new liquor law, e-marketing and blogs,  wine festivals, an overview of Australia’s wine tourism strategy, the lessons that the German wine and tourism industry learnt during the 2006 World Cup, customer attraction and retention, responsible tourism, and creating tourism brands.   

Speakers will include representatives of leading wine farms, tourism industry bodies and marketing specialists.

S A Tourism and Cape Town Tourism worked hard in marketing the country at the ITB travel and tourism expo in Berlin, which was held earlier this month.

According to TravelHub,  S A Tourism launched the new ‘Voices’ advertising campaign, which sees Germans being asked to relate their positive experiences of South Africa.    It is planned to have over a million Germans talking positively about South Africa by June 2010.

FIFA and the Local Organising Committee for the 2010 World Cup used ITB as a platform to encourage and inform the German market about the event, reassuring them about the country’s readiness, infrastructure and sustainability, the report says.

S A Tourism won third prize for its ‘Numbers’ ad in the Golden Gate international film advertising awards competition at ITB.

Cape Town Tourism too was active at ITB, and its CEO Mariette du Toit-Helmbold reported back on the successes her association achieved:    Cape Town Tourism was invited to present its visitor services and marketing innovation to the World Tourism Organisation International Destination Council;   the 2010 World Cup mascot Zakumi was used in a competition, in which ITB attendees could be photographed with Zakumi, post it on the Cape Town Tourism website with a creative comment about Cape Town, to win two tickets for the 2010 World Cup, resulting in 200 images being received;   via a German PR company, Cape Town Tourism’s PR and Communications Manager met 15  journalists individually, presented its marketing toolkit to Dr Michael Kaiser from News Corporation Germany, who will do a presentation on Cape Town to the German Press Club,  Suedafrika magazine will do a free two-page spread on Cape Town, and a free feature on Cape Town will appear in the bi-annual German 1 Golf publication.  

In addition, Cape Town Tourism will be running a winter promotion on Expedia; an educational campaign with FTI, Germany’s third largest tour operator, was concluded;  joint marketing agreements were concluded with Tripadvisor, Google, and BBC News on-line; an agreement was reached with Petit Fute to develop a French guide book for Cape Town;  and assistance will be provided in the production of the official 2010 FIFA World Cup documentary.

However, Cape Town Routes Unlimited Marketing executive David Frandsen, on his return from ITB, has predicted that leisure tourism from Germany will decline by 20 % in the coming season.   He based his forecast on the 30 % drop in bookings received by the top five German tour operators making bookings in South Africa, in January and February this year.    He said however that 200 smaller special tour operators are making up for the decline in bookings received from the big tour operators.   Namibia is attracting bookings from the German market, and has become a trendy destination for Germans.

S A Tourism is re-developing its website www.southafrica.net, and the government tourism promotion agency, together with Google, is doing a “complete clean-up of the National Tourism Product Database” says an e-mail sent to tourism players yesterday.

Sent by William Price, the Global Head: eMarketing of S A Tourism, the letter encourages co-operation to help to update each tourism player’s information, particularly in the interest of 2010.   The e-mail contains an 8-digit verification code, which must be requested of the S A Tourism representative when he/she calls.  

What is most astounding is that the letter says”….and don’t be alarmed by the Aussie accent when you get your phone call.”    Whale Cottage was called by a man with an American accent earlier this week, requesting update information.    The immediate question to the caller was to understand why a South African tourism agency would use a non-South African company to update the S A Tourism website.  The caller could not explain this.  This reply, plus the poor ability to understand his American-accented questions, made Whale Cottage decline the rest of the call.

The e-mail promises that the website will showcase the tourism products as follows:

It will be interesting to see what degree of co-operation S A Tourism will receive for the tourism information update, given that the e-mail with the verification code has to kept until the call is received.  No date for the call is specified.   

Whale Cottage has written to S A Tourism, to check why a South African company cannot update the tourism product database.

The Sweet Service Award goes to Justin at The Grand Cafe in Camps Bay, for greeting his regular customers by name, always making a plan to make a table available, even if a booking has not been made, and for even remembering the customers’ favourite dishes on the menu.   He creates a most welcoming atmosphere, a rare attribute, not experienced at other local restaurants.

The Sour Service Award goes to Fresh laundry in Sea Point, for being unable to get stains out of laundry, yet charging a fortune for it, and rude service when the customer’s unhappiness was expressed.   On the day that the laundry was dropped off, the franchisee, Mrs Mitchell, was at the Main Road outlet.  The staff member writing out the slip on that day was ill, and was not able to give good service.  Mrs Mitchell did not send the staff member home nor did she take over from her.  She did not say that she thought that they would not get the stains out, which is what the customer was told when she arrived, yet had to pay R 200 for 4 items of bed linen.   Esther was on duty on the day of collection, and refused to take the customer’s laundry out of the cupboard until the payment had been done.  She screamed at the customer, took her time in taking the payment, made calls to Mrs Mitchell to hold up the process even further, the customer had to take the linen out of the cupboard herself,  and the customer was called a “bitch” when she left the laundry!

The WhaleTales Sweet & Sour Service Awards are presented every Friday on the WhaleTales blog.  Nominations for the Sweet and Sour Service Awards can be sent to Chris von Ulmenstein at info@whalecottage.com.

The barring of the visit by the Dalai Lama to attend a peace conference in Johannesburg on Friday has caused an international outcry, the South African government being accused of bowing to pressure from China.  

The conference has been postponed, due to the refusal by Nobel Peace Prize winners FW de Klerk and Archbishop Desmond Tutu to attend if the Dalai Lama may not attend.  

The South African government has justified its decision on the fact that it does not want to detract attention from the country for World Cup 2010, but appears to have achieved exactly the opposite as the story has hit the world media.   President Kgalema Motlanthe’s is to have said:” It would not be in the interests of the country to invite the Dalai Lama to South Africa at this stage, because the attention of the whole world is on us as the host of 2010 Fifa World Cup.   The presence of the Dalai Lama here will divert such attention from us to other issues” reported the Cape Times.

The conference has been organised by the Premier Soccer League, as part of the celebrations leading up to the 2010 World Cup.

The tourism industry celebrated good news on two fronts yesterday  -  a 1 % percentage point drop in the interest rate, and the announcement that the 2009 Indian Premier League cricket matches will be hosted in South Africa from 18 April - 24 May.

The Governor of the Reserve Bank Tito Mboweni announced the drop in the interest rate, bringing the interest rate down to 13 %, its lowest level since June 2007.   The Reserve Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee will be meeting monthly from now onwards, paving the way for regular rate cuts in future.

England lost to South Africa in hosting the Indian Premier League tournament, which had to be shifted away from India due to safety concerns.   The Indian government felt that it could not guarantee the safety of the players due to elections being held in India during April and May, given the attacks on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Mumbai in November.   South Africa was chosen mainly due to concerns over the weather in England in April, and the county cricket season being underway in the UK at the same time, reports Sky News.

Twelve South African cricketers, including Graeme Smith, Morne Morkel, Tyrone Henderson, JP Duminy, Ryan McLaren, Herschelle Gibbs and AB de Villiers, have been contracted to Indian teams for the 2009 Indian Premier League season, reports www.southafrica.info.

Later this year, South Africa will host the 2009 cricket Champions Trophy, from 24 September - 5 October, at the Wanderers and Centurion stadia in Johannesburg and Pretoria, respectively.   South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and the United Arab Emirates will compete for the trophy.

Cape Town Tourism and Cape Town Routes Unlimited have both launched new websites in the past month, each of them promoting Cape Town, reports TravelHub.

Western Cape provincial minister of Tourism Garth Strachan once again called for better co-operation between Cape Town Tourism and Cape Town Routes Unlimited (CTRU) at a tourism destination conference hosted by Cape Town Routes Unlimited eatlier this month.    He has recently publicly requested the City of Cape Town to reconsider its withdrawal of funding from CTRU, and subsequent appointment of Cape Town Tourism to market the city.

Strachan also said that the province has had to allocate a further R 3,5 million to CTRU, to allow for World Cup 2010 marketing this year.

Strachan described the current tourism politics as “it’s the silly season six weeks before the election.   Hopefully we will see sense afterwards.”

South African peri-peri spiced chicken restaurant chain Nando’s may be sold to Yum! Brands inc., the USA owners of Taco Bell, KFC and Pizza Hut, reports Bloomberg.com.

Already a chain with 700 restaurants in 25 countries, Nando’s was started more than 20 years ago, and has differentiated itself from other fast-food restaurants by its cheeky advertising campaigns.

The first Humpback whales have been sighted in Hermanus this month, a very early arrival, reports the Hermanus Times.

Humpback whales pass through Hermanus on their way to the Mozambiquean and St Lucia waters, where they breed.   They are usually seen between Vermont and the Beach Club in Hermanus.