Whale Cottage Portfolio Blog

A number of Franschhoek restaurants are offering good value winter specials:

Allora: 3-course winter meal R 85, one free children’s meal for every main course ordered, Sunday roast R 95, complimentary Gluehwein, and delivery of pasta.

Bouillabaisse:   Food and wine pairing 4-course dinners on Thursdays at R 225

Burgundy’s:   Daily specials, including oxtail (R 78), soup (R 40), pasta (R 65), savoury pancakes (55), cakes (R 28). Free glass of wine per main course.

Cotage Fromage:   10 % off main course if have two courses for lunch

Dieu Donne: Friday evening “Pub Fair” at R 75 and 25 % off Dieu Donne wine and beer

French Connection:  Set menu for R 125 Monday - Friday lunch and Monday - Thursday dinner, also sandwich or pita plus glass of Pierre Jourdan Tranquille at R 60.  Christmas in July at R 225, with contribution to charity, date to be announced.  

Genot: 3-course set menu at R 150

Grande Provence:   2-course lunch and dinner R 150, 3-courses R 195 and 4-courses R 240 Mondays to Saturdays.

Haute Cabriere:   2-course set menu Monday - Friday lunch, and Friday and Saturday evenings, R 100 per head 

ici:   chicken, glass of wine, and a movie at R 120, on Wednesday and Saturday evenings

La Petite Ferme:   Friday evening winter “loosen your belt” dinners, 3-course set menu R 150 + carafe of wine

Reubens:  2-course set menu at R 130 and 3-course set menu at R 150

Further details about  the Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com 

This article was first published in the July issue of The Franschhoek Month.

The hospitality industry is under severe pressure to survive financially, given the decline in occupancy, and the reduction in rates to attract bookings and to conserve cash flow.

The increase in telephone costs, electricity costs, in the price of petrol and diesel, and in the Minimum Wage, combined with the lack of a cut in the interest rate by the Reserve Bank last week, is a severe blow to the industry, but also affects every South African household, the main source of income for the industry.

The worst shock is the increase in the price of electricity by 31 % from 1 July.   The increase is justified on the basis of new electricity infrastructure that is required, to prevent electricity load-shedding, as was experienced in 2007 and 2008.   Eskom had requested a 33 % price increase.

The price of petrol is set to increase by 40 cents a litre from 1 July, raising the price to R 7,90 a litre in Gauteng, reports Reuters.

TELKOM boasts about a minimal rise in its costs to consumers, but has sneakily left out the call cost increases of 11 %.

For hospitality establishments with fewer than 10 employees, the Minimum Wage increases by 11% to R 1 843,23 per month, R 425,43 per week and R 9,45 per hour from 1 July.   The formula for calculating the annual increase has been laid down by the Department of Labour ( consumer price index + 2 %).   Many staff may be prepared to hold their salaries to ensure that they maintain their jobs, but this flexibility is not allowed by the Department, who could not have foreseen the credit crunch when it introduced the Minimum Wage for the hospitality industry in 2007.

Department of Tourism Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk says that tourism has been more resilient than other sectors of the economy, but that tough times lie ahead.    “We are not immune to the effects of the economic crisis” he said.

Warning of difficult times ahead, Van Schalkwyk said: “Some of the impact will only become more visible in the next few months as the full consequences of the global meltdown trickles down.   There is clearly no denying that the marketplace for tourism today looks dramatically different to a year ago.   Although this sector is not as hard hit as some others, demand is down and for many the times are tough.”   He added that the World Tourism Organisation had forecast that international tourism arrivals had declined by 8 %.  At best, they are forecasting a 0 to minus 2 % growth by December this year.

He stressed that “greater resilience against future external economic shocks” must be built, reports BuaNews.

Whale Cottage Franschhoek hosted the accommodation for Nicci Botha, editor of Wine Tourism News, last week, and received excellent feedback.

She was the guest of the Franschhoek Wine Valley Tourism Association, and spent two days enjoying the best of what Franschhoek has to offer:  gym at the Franschhoek Health Club, dinner at Grande Provence, breakfast at Mont Rochelle, lunch at Bread & Wine, the Franschhoek Motor Museum, winetasting at Vrede & Lust and lunch at Cotage Fromage, and sleeping over at Whale Cottage Franschhoek.

“Nicci raved about jumping into your stunning ball and claw bath! She said she had never seen such a welcoming sight in her life! She raved about Whale Cottage saying that it felt like she was in a real seaside cottage! She loved it!” was the fabulous feedback Whale Cottage Franschhoek received!

The Sweet Service Award goes to Abas at Pick ‘n Pay Gardens in Cape Town, for organizing the same-day delivery of a grocery order, after a colleague had arranged to only deliver it a day later because she was leaving the store early to go home. Even more impressive was a follow-up call received from him, to check that the order had been delivered correctly. 

The Sour Service Award goes to the City of Cape Town’s municipality. The City of Cape Town owns many palm trees in Cape Town, but never proactively trims their dead branches. During the wild wind storms of the past few days, Fresnaye has been littered with these branches. The City of Cape Town was requested to collect a large number of branches that had come down from two palm trees, and was amazed when the doorbell rang an hour after making the request. A Council official stated that he had come to take the branches away, and asked how much he and his team (driving in a Council truck!) would be paid. They drove off, without removing a single branch, after he was told that he would not be paid, as the request had been logged with the Call Centre! The City offices were called immediately, but the call centre staff was unable to deal with the complaint about this rogue team. The senior manager Helene Bam was uninterested in the complaint of wastage of ratepayers’ monies, and bribery and corruption by City staff, saying that the details provided about the incident were “too vague”, given that the caller could not tell her exactly what the City truck says on its outside and what the reference number is on the truck! The City has one central call centre, and does not allow one to call any of its departments directly. This is most inefficient, and is not conducive to preventing the Council’s facilities being abused for personal gain by City employees.

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. Past winners of the Sweet and Sour Service Awards can be read on the Friday posts of this blog, and in the WhaleTales newsletters on the www.whalecottage.com website

The Whale Cottage Portfolio has embraced new technology and social media, by posting tweets on Twitter, mainly to publicise new blog posts on its WhaleTales blog.

Twitter is one of the fastest growing social media networks, and allows its users to communicate in a maximum of 140 characters. More than 5 million persons Twitter around the world. The communication is driven by the answer to the question: What are you doing now?” Most Twitterers do not reply to the question, rather sending their information proactively about any topic they wish. The Tweets can also be used to gain information from other Twitterers, by posing questions.

Twitter has developed its own terminology, and the following are some new additions to the dictionary, according to David White, a Twitter consultant: “monitter” = monitoring what people are saying linked to specific keywords; “Tweetbeeps” are tweets that mentions one’s name or brand, with regular updates; “Twiveaway” = competition designed to build more followers; and “Twtqpon” = a coupon offered to followers. See www.howtotweet.co.uk for guidelines on how to tweet on Twitter.

Whale Cottage can be found on Twitter at http://twitter.com/whalecottage, and invites readers of the WhaleTales blog to follow whalecottage.

FIFA’s President Sepp Blatter has announced that President Barack Obama has accepted an invitation to attend the opening ceremony of the World Cup at Soccer City in Johannesburg on 11 June 2010, reports the Cape Argus.

Being cautious about Obama’s actual attendance, Blatter said:” The President of the United States has been invited to the opening ceremony of the 2010 World Cup.  He has accepted our invitation.  But you know that heads of state are extremely busy and hopefully his schedule will allow him to attend.”

Blatter said that the world had started trusting Africa, including South Africa, in delivering a unique but spectacular World Cup.   “The world will see a fantastic spectacle in Africa in 2010.   South Africa is going to make everyone proud of Africa.  Believe me, I trust Africa and South Africa completely.   I have never for a minute doubted that the 2010 World Cup will be a massive success” Blatter added.

Blatter added: “It is a continent that has given us so much and it’s time to give it something in return.  And look, our economic partners have shown their confidence, and television too.   They will be there in 2010.  It’s only right and I believe that it was a moral obligation of ours to give the World Cup to the Africans”, reports Reuters.

The opening match will attract up to 100 000 soccer fans, in a match at which Italy, as defending world champions, or Bafana Bafana, as hosts, will play.

Wines of South Africa (WOSA) is planning to bring wine journalists to South Africa during the 2010 World Cup, to enjoy the soccer and wine feast the country has to offer next year, reports Cape Business News.

Su Birch, CEO of WOSA, said that many wine producers are planning to bring European importers to the country for the top soccer event, and have designed incentive programs.   “Our intention is to ensure visiting foreign trade and media are exposed to our producers and activities in the winelands while they are here.   We’ll give them a taste of true South African hospitality for which we have become famous.   They’ll experience the spontaneous African warmth and excitement surrounding the games and get to taste our wines in a new context” she said.

Given the 2010 World Cup focus, WOSA will not be putting on Cape Wine in 2010, and will next host it in 2012.

Birch recently received the honour of being named “Woman of the Year” by The Drinks Business, a British journal, “for her role in the enormous advances made by the South African wine industry on international markets over the past decade.”  South African wine exports have grown three-fold in the past ten years.

South Africa is the ninth largest producer of wines, and represents 3 % of total world wine production.  Currently just over 400 million liters are exported from South Africa, a growth of 17 % compared to the year before.  Sales have grown by 27 % to the UK, by 12 % to Germany, and by 26 % to Sweden, the top three South African export markets.

Hotel representatives in South Africa are less optimistic about their occupancy and financial performance in the second quarter of 2009 than they were twelve months ago, according to a survey done by Horwath HTL Hotel Performance Confidence Indicator, reports TravelHub.

A decline in occupancy is expected by 56 % of hoteliers, while 44 % expect a decrease in revenue.     However, 52 % indicated that they expected Average Room Rates to increase.  

Occupancy declines are most likely to affect two star hotels (71 %), then 4-star hotels (60 %), 3-star hotels (57 %) and 50 % of 5-star hotels, says the survey.    Smaller boutique hotels are far more confident about occupancy levels than are large 250 + room hotels, which have the lowest level of occupancy confidence.  

In the Western Cape the occupancy forecast is particularly bleak, given the added problem of seasonality, resulting in between 59 - 70 % of all hotels in the region expecting their occupancy to decrease.   Also, between 50 - 63 % of all hotels in the province expect decreases in revenue, particularly so at 4- and 5-star level. 

Overall, the lower star rated hotels appear to be more confident about raising their Average Room Rates compared to the 5-star hotels, who have the lowest expectation of all star grading categories in doing so.    Revenue declines are most likely to take place at 2-, 3- and 4-star hotels, with 40 % of 5-star hotels being confident that their revenue will not change from last year.

Given the embarrassing start to the Confederations Cup, with a near-empty Rustenburg stadium last Sunday, FIFA is to hand out free tickets to schools, soccer clubs and youth organisations to ensure that the remaining matches are played to full stadia, reports the Cape Argus.

FIFA Media Head Nicolas Maingot has said that “And if we look at previous Confederations Cup tournaments, South Africa is not doing badly at all.   He compared average tickets sales per match to the 2003 Confederations Cup in France in 2003 at almost 31 000, and over 37 000 in Germany in 2005.   Current Confederations Cup attendance is 33 170 per match on average.

Trade union federation COSATU has encouraged South Africans to buy Confederations Cup tickets.  “The low turnouts at some matches have been a serious embarrassment to the country and must be improved upon” said COSATU spokesperson Patrick Craven, probably one of the more intelligent statements made by the trade union in a long time, as reported in The Times.

Rich Mkhondo, spokesperson of the Local Organising Committee, has continued his bizarre media comments:   “We have informed the people and marketed and organised this event, but we can’t force people to buy tickets.”   He confirmed that the LOC would not cut ticket prices for the Confederations Cup.