Whale Cottage Portfolio Blog

The City of Cape Town has spelt out its public transport plans for the soccer fans attending the World Cup in Cape Town from 11 June to 11 July.

A combination of transport methods, including trains, buses, minibus taxis, and metered taxis will transport guests between the airport, the station, the public viewing areas, and the Cape Town Stadium, reports the Cape Times.

Soccer fans with World Cup tickets will travel for free between the stadium and any one of 25 park-and-ride centres in the city, even stretching out as far as Strand, and also including UCT, Camps Bay High School, and Kronendal Primary in Hout Bay, offering 7000 parking bays in total.   Park-and-ride centers include Century City, GrandWest Casino, Kuilsriver, Oostersee, Fish Hoek, Retreat, Brackenfell and Claremont.

A shuttle bus will run from Hertzog Boulevard at the Civic Centre to the Cape Town Stadium, starting 6 hours before the match starts until 4 hours after each match on match days.  

On match days too, an Atlantic seaboard bus service will run from Hout Bay through Camps Bay and Sea Point, to the Stadium, starting 4 hours before kick-off, until 2h00 the next morning.

Throughout the 31 days of the FIFA World Cup, a shuttle bus will transport soccer fans from Cape Town International airport to Hertzog Boulevard 24 hours of the day, in intervals of 6 - 30 minutes, depending on usage.   The cost is a reasonable R 50 per one-way trip.

A further bus service will operate in the city itself, running 24 hours per day, and leaving every 10 - 30 minutes, connecting Hertzog Boulevard, Table Bay Boulevard, Heerengracht, Coen Steytler Avenue, Long and Loop Streets, Buitensingel Street, Orange Street, Buitenkant Street, Darling Street, Oswald Pirow Avenue and back to Hertzog Boulevard.   This will allow soccer fans, with tickets for the stadia, or just coming to enjoy the fan park outside the City Hall, to obtain easy access to their hotels and to restaurants.  Another shuttle bus route will be to Queens Beach in Sea Point, via the Waterfront, until 2h00 every morning.

Trains will transport the soccer fans to public viewing areas at the Bellville Velodrome, Athlone Civic Centre, OR Tambo Sports Hall in Khayelitscha, and the Swartklip Sport Hall in Mitchell’s Plain.

The city has warned that one will not be able to park close to the stadium, and that disabled soccer fans will have to also make use of public transport, its shuttle stations being wheelchair-friendly.

Further information about the transport connections during the World Cup can be obtained on www.capetown.gov.za, or at tel 0800 656 463.

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

What was Ravi Naidoo, owner of Interactive Africa and ‘Mr Cool’, who boasts FIFA as a client, and organiser of 13 Design Indaba’s to date, thinking when he decided to put Martha Stewart on the programme for the 2010 Design Indaba, which ended this weekend?

Billing Stewart as the lead Design Indaba speaker on its website, Stewart was described as speaking about “Food Design” at the Conference part of the Design Indaba, about ”the creative principles and practical ideas that have made her America’s most trusted guide to stylish living.  Millions of consumers rely on Martha Stewart as their arbiter of style and taste and their guide to all aspects of everyday living - from cooking and entertaining to decorating and gardening, and much more”.  Stewart’s profession is stated as : entrepreneur, TV host and author.  

None of these “credentials” would have necessarily made Stewart eligible as a speaker at a conference addressed and attended by the world’s top designers.  So what went wrong? Firstly, through Twitter, one could track Stewart’s movements around the country, from the time she left New York on SAA, praising the airline highly (sponsored ticket?), she was met in Johannesburg and taken on a safari to Singita (sponsored?), and then arrived in Cape Town, where she stayed at the One & Only Cape Town (sponsored?).  Stewart’s talk was mid-morning on day three.  From her Tweets, it was clear that she had made no effort to attend any of the other talks on the first two days, choosing rather to go sightseeing and winetasting, but here her brand endorsements stopped.   It is the owners of the wine estates (which included Warwick and Graham Beck) that made one aware of her stops there on Twitter.  She did Tweet about her lunch at Waterkloof, mistakenly referring to it being in Stellenbosch!  Given that she has close to 2 million followers on Twitter, this would have had a good marketing benefit for the Cape.

At Design Indaba, the conference organisers as well as bizcommunity.com, were Tweeting from the conference.   Here is the take on Martha Stewart’s talk by Louise Marsland, ex-editor of and writer for bizcommunity.com and editor of AdVantage magazine, who Twittered the whole Conference every few seconds:

‘The always spectacular Design Indaba will this year be remembered, not only for the fabulous speakers such as Harry Pearce, Bruce Nussbaum, Priyush Pandey, Stefan Bucher, Mokena Makeke, etc, but for the worst presentation it’s (sic) ever hosted - by famous ‘homemaker’ Martha Stewart. Who will also now be credited with launching the first local “twitcom”. [view twitterfall)   Delivering a presentation more suited to the Krugersdorp Vrouefederasie or the Belville (sic) Housewives Scrapbooking Circle, she managed to inspire a mass walkout in both auditoriums - practically unheard of in the history of Design Indaba, which is the industry’s premier conference and expo showcase in the creative industries and an inspiration destination annually.  And so we get another twiord (twitter word): she was ‘twitter slapped’ (twitapped?) by the twitterverse. Twerrible.  The complaints centred around that fact that she used her presentation as a sales pitch (given how she is about to launch her ‘Martha Stewart’s Cupcakes’ in South Africa) and spoke to these highly creative and key delegates with a lack of awareness that was astounding. With the likes of local agency heads and creative directors and world-renowned designers and architects in the audience, you don’t talk about doing ‘glitter by numbers’ pictures and show 29 pictures of yourself holding various farm life (unless that’s part of your creative installation!). The laughter was cringe worthy indeed. The result was a walkout.  Basically she was boring and out of touch and self-promotional. Everything that Design Indaba is not. Design Indaba is about collaboration, sustainability, social entrepreneurship, less conspicuous consumption and looking towards redesigning a new world where product has less impact on the environment. General opinion was summed up by the biting comment of MC Michael Bierut as Stewart left the stage: “Dr Craig Venter is to the human genome as Martha Stewart is to paint chips.” Ouch!The subtle quips continued through subsequent speakers in the afternoon on Friday with references to the ‘millions’ to be made out of design (not) and pleas for people not to put gold glitter on their food, or anything else for that matter. Speakers following her were thanked profusely for “showing us what Design Indaba is all about” by Bierut. Groans and laughter greeted each aside.  Delegates who walked out gathered around Bizcommunity.com’s live ‘twitterfall’ screen outside the main auditorium which live-fed the deluge of tweets to delegates. “It was hysterical,” said one executive creative director of a leading SA ad agency. “The tweets were hugely entertaining, much more so than her speech!”  Another creative director pointed out that the real story was how fantastically social media worked in this case. “People didn’t like her… so they said so. That’s the real story. Brilliant.”   Delegates and journalists attending didn’t pull any punches, with scathing references to her ‘lack of a glittering performance’ and the fact that she could write a book on ‘How to clear a room’, rather.’

Yesterday Stewart addressed a less distinguished audience, who paid R 250 to attend a breakfast session sponsored by Woolworths.   From the blog and Twitter feedback it appears that Stewart used the same talk, but attendees had lowered their expectations, given the feedback about her talk the previous day.   Some comments seemed self-justifying, others remained critical: read Cape Town News Blog’s report here.

Stewart appeared unaffected by the furore, happily continuing her Tweeting about beautiful Cape Town and hoping that she could get up Table Mountain, after the gale force southeaster winds had prevented her from accessing this design icon of the city.  In fairness to her, she did not make any negative comments on Twitter about her visit to South Africa, and was gracious to her hosts and sponsors in acknowledging them, the main ones at least!

Martha Stewart’s visit to Cape Town will be remembered for all the wrong reasons.

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

The Minister of Tourism, Marthinus van Schalkwyk, has announced that he has contracted Grant Thornton to conduct a survey of accommodation prices during the June/July World Cup period, and to benchmark these against the prices of accommodation in countries that previously hosted FIFA World Cups, reports www.iol.co.za.  The survey is to be conducted, despite the tourism industry body Tourism Business Council of South Africa and FIFA’s MATCH accommodation agency denying that World Cup prices are excessive.

The survey comes amidst international criticism that accommodation pricing is excessive and deemed to be “rip-off”.   Van Schalkwyk said that “the survey would help safeguard the reputation of the South African tourism industry, since South Africa is a ‘value-for-money destination’  Price-hiking could damage the reputation of our tourism industry”, he said.

Van Schalkwyk did make it clear that tourists could not expect to pay normal low-season rates during the World Cup : “……June and July 2010 will be high season in South Africa”.

The Grant Thornton survey will only be conducted amongst professional accommodation establishments, and will exclude private homes.

The Tourism Business Council of South Africa (TBCSA), which claims to be ‘the official umbrella body for organised business in the South African travel and tourism industry’, and MATCH, FIFA’s accommodation agency, have made a joint statement that the industry pricing is not rip-off nor excessive, reports S A Tourism Update.  The TBCSA chairman Mmatsatsi Marobe praised the tourism sector for not charging “exorbitant prices as they understood the long-term effect on tourism into South Africa, but it was the doing of a few small suppliers that put South Africa in a bad light”, she said.   The MATCH Chairman, Jaime Byron, came with the following brilliant logic about pricing: “…the 2010 FIFA World Cup was expected to be more expensive than previous tournaments because it was a long-haul destination.  This makes South Africa inherently more expensive”, he is quoted as saying!   It was noted by them that the media should be careful about attacking the World Cup pricing, as it had to be accurate about what exactly was included in the prices quoted in such media reports (e.g. accommodation, tickets, transport).  

The TBCSA/MATCH statements are ironic, as MATCH has been blamed for excessive “rip-off pricing” since it started recruiting accommodation for the World Cup four years ago, demanding a 30 % commission from accommodation establishments initially, and now just adding this commission percentage on to the already high accommodation rates! 

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

One could see it coming!   With numerous reports over the past month indicating that ticket sales for the World Cup were not as brisk as they should be, especially from non-South African countries, it has now been announced that prices of category 2 and 3 tickets have been slashed by FIFA, reports the Weekend Argus.

Instead of costing up to R 840 a ticket, category 2 and 3 tickets will now be sold exclusively to South Africans at R 140, on the www.fifa.com website, at FNB branches, or telephonically at 083 123 2010.

Furthermore, the number of category 4 tickets, the cheapest tickets, and offered at a special low rate to South Africans, will be increased, to boost sales, and to ensure that the stadiums are full on match days.   “The plan to discount tickets comes as Fifa admitted that projected inflow of tourists coming to the World Cup would be much less than expected”, writes the newspaper.   FIFA’s General Secretary, Jerome Valcke, told a British newspaper that it was trying its best to get more South Africans to buy tickets.

While the ticket price reductions make the tickets more affordable to South Africa’s soccer fans, those that had bought tickets already are angry that they bought them at the higher prices.  

No arrangements appear to have been made to encourage more ticket sales from other African countries, where soccer fans have complained that technological contraints in booking tickets via the internet, as well as general lack of credit card ownership, are impeding sales in those countries.

WhaleTales speculated that in a “FIFA flop”, ticket prices would drop, and that more South Africans than international soccer fans would watch the matches, a disaster for the hospitality industry, as the accommodation, restaurant, and other related services would not be required by locals, and would not be affordable to many of them, given that pricing had been set at 2010 summer rates + 10 - 20 % for the international market.

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

Prince William and Prince Harry are planning to spend 10 days in South Africa in June, and will attend the World Cup, in support of their England team, according to the Cape Argus.  This will add a welcome royal touch to the world’s top sport event, which is good for marketing South Africa and the event.

The princes will be combining their visit to South Africa with participation in the Enduro, a charity motorcycle ride.  They will also host a reception to support Britain’s bid to host the 2018 FIFA World Cup.  Prince William is President of the England Football Association.   Prince Harry is expected to see Chelsy Davy, his South African girlfriend.  

During their visit to Africa, the princes will also visit Botswana and Lesotho, for the Tusk Trust charity of which Prince William is the royal patron, and the Sentabale charity for AIDS orphans established by Prince Harry, respectively, reports The Times. 

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

Fewer than 2 % of the World Cup tickets have been sold to African countries other than South Africa, reports the Cape Times.   FIFA’s goal of making the World Cup an “African World Cup” has not been met to date.

Of the total of 2 million tickets sold to date, only 11 500 have been sold to other African countries.   This is viewed as a “dismal” performance by Tembi Tichaawa, a researcher at the Walter Sisulu University.   He blames the complicated FIFA World Cup ticket purchasing procedure for the poor sales. “Technology has failed Africans” he is reported to have said.  

The highest sales to African countries have been to soccer fans in Mocambique, Botswana and Kenya, at about 1 500 tickets sold in each of these countries.   Poor internet connections and lack of credit card ownership are said to stand in the way of ticket purchases from Africa, and Ticaawa reacted as follows: “The high technology method of selling tickets needs to be urgently looked at by Fifa.  The emphasis should have been on African fans.  For us here we go to a ticket box, but that is not the case with the World Cup”.

South African  soccer fans lead ticket sales, at 790 000, followed by the USA (116 765), the United Kingdom (68 213) and Germany (30 974).

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

The tourism industry in Cape Town will be disappointed that none of the 32 World Cup teams have chosen a base camp in or near Cape Town.   The base camp location has an important attraction for fans, who want to stay in the same towns and cities as their home team. 

Despite a deadline of the end of last month, FIFA has given the teams one more week to finalise their choice.  Six teams have not yet announced their final base camp choice.

The Western Cape has 2 teams (France and Denmark) staying in Knysna at Pezula and Simola, respectively, and Japan will be based in George at the Fancourt Hotel. 

Gauteng has the most teams to date, who chose the province for the altitude for their practice sessions, the top quality sport facilities and top quality accommodation : The Netherlands, South Africa, Portugal, Serbia, New Zealand, Slovenia, Brazil, Australia, Honduras, Switzerland, North Korea, and Mexico. 

Pretoria has attracted USA, Germany, Italy, Slovakia, and Argentina.   KwaZulu-Natal has secured Algeria, Ivory Coast, Greece, and Paraguay.   Uruguay is staying in Kimberley.   Ghana  is staying in White River. England and South Korea are staying in Rustenberg.  Chile is staying in Mapumalanga.   Spain has not chosen between Rustenburg and Potchefstroom yet.

Many municipalities spent big money trying to encourage teams to set up base camps in their towns.  Mossel Bay was sure that it had bagged Paraguay, and both Val du Vie and Pearl Valley outside Franschhoek were rumoured to have signed up a team.  The Sunday Times reports that the Mossel Bay municipality spent R 200 million on its bid, and had launched an extensive Spanish language campaign for tourism players in the town.   Bloemfontein, Port Elizabeth and East London also did not attract any base camps.

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

Tourism in Cape Town will enjoy a double whammy at the start of the World Cup, with FIFA’s Local Organising Committee and the South African Rugby Union reaching an agreement which will allow the rugby test match between the Springboks and the French team to be played at Newlands on Saturday 12 June, reports the Cape Argus. 

According to the FIFA rules, no other sporting events may take place from 24 May onwards, to ensure that they do not drain any host city’s infrastructure, and its ability to host the World Cup.  As the rugby test match will not be played on a FIFA match day in Cape Town, permission was granted for the test match.

Cape Town can be expected to be invaded by French rugby and soccer fans in June, as the French soccer team plays Uruguay on Friday 11 June, the World Cup starting day, and the French rugby team plays the Springboks on Saturday 12 June.

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

FIFA’s MATCH accommodation agency has cancelled 65 000 bed nights in the Western Cape, and 441 695 bed nights nationally, reports the Cape Times.

The release of rooms without cancellation penalty to MATCH is a further sign that the World Cup may not be as successful in terms of international bookings as may have been hoped internationally.  The article’s opening paragraph states: “FIFA has relinquished 65 022 rooms nights in the Western Cape because of lack of demand….”

Vivienne Bervoets, Senior Accommodation Manager of MATCH,  stated in the article that the reasons for the room cancellations include that the rooms booked by MATCH were not on match days, that the establishments were further than 70 km from a host city, and that the accommodation type (e.g. timeshare) proved to be unpopular with international visitors.   The bulk of the room nights cancelled in the Western Cape appear to be in Cape Town.   The dates already cancelled appear to be bookings MATCH made with establishments for dates before 11 June and after 11 July, signalling that pre- and post-World Cup tours are unlikely to happen.   The article intimates that further accommodation cancellations may be possible, depending on the demand for tickets.

Business Day also reported on the accommodation cancellations, stating that 31 % of the bed nights booked initially, and representing 7 843 rooms, had been cancelled by MATCH.  The timeshare cancellations amounted to close to 31 000 timeshare weeks.  Bervoets is quoted as saying “Match has substantially curtailed its procurement drive to concentrate on sales and operations”.  She stated that MATCH is still looking for “good quality hotel rooms, specifically in Gauteng, and also for contract properties if customers specifically requested this”.  

It is surprising that so much of the room stock has been cancelled, given the outcry about the poor support of MATCH, and that it had to bring in cruise liners and contract properties in neighbouring countries, including Mauritius, to build up sufficient accommodation stock for the World Cup accommodation requirements.  

The Cape Argus also reported on the MATCH cancellations, and quoted Dr Laurine Platsky, the Western Cape province 2010 co-ordinator, as saying that “rooms were released because of a lack of demand and fewer bookings than expected.”   Rooms cancelled in the Western Cape were on the West Coast and in outlying areas, she said.  

The room nights cancellations may imply that MATCH’s Matchville concept, in creating hubs or concentrations of accommodation outside host cities, in supplementing accommodation supply, may have raised the hopes of accommodation establishments which cannot be fulfilled.   In Plettenberg Bay, a Matchville centre, for example, it appears that 50 % of the room nights booked by MATCH have been cancelled already.

MATCH has until 10 April to cancel further room nights without being subject to its cancellation policy, and resultant payment to accommodation establishments for accommodation cancellations.   More cancellations are expected before this date.

Accommodation establishments who have had their MATCH room nights cancelled are unhappy, saying that FIFA “overhyped” its accommodation needs, reports a further article in the Cape Times.

FEDHASA CEO Brett Dungan is quoted in reports about the MATCH cancellations, in which he opportunistically offers cancelled MATCH establishments the hope that his new (personally owned) website “portal” www.rooms4u.travel, which has been set up on behalf of S A Tourism, can fill all the room nights cancelled by MATCH.  This is contradictory sentiment, as Dungan has praised MATCH consistently, and protected their rip-off pricing, pointing a finger at non-MATCH contracted properties and blaming them for “rip-off” pricing!

Even Cape Town Tourism has insensitively “welcomed the release of the rooms and the opportunity now available for establishments to market their rooms during the 20 weeks leading up to the tournament.   Experience has taught us that last-minute bookings for events like the World Cup are not unusual and we are expecting an increase in booking confirmations during the next few months”, according to a quote in the Cape Times.

Non-MATCH contracted guest houses are complaining that bookings are not looking as rosy as they were led to expect, and many are only about 50 % booked, even if they are charging “reasonable” prices for their accommodation.

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

Ticket sales for the 2010 World Cup are not going as hoped, and increasingly international criticism is being expressed about the costs of attending this premier world sporting event, in respect of ticket prices, the costs of flying to and within South Africa, and the accommodation costs.

German soccer hero and ex-trainer, and FIFA Exco Member Franz Beckenbauer has spoken out about the high ticket prices for the 2010 World Cup, reports the Cape Argus.   Beckenbauer says that few soccer fans can afford the high ticket prices, he allegedly told SkyNews. Of the 21 000 tickets available to follow the German team in playing Australia, Serbia and Ghana in Group D, only 6 700 have been sold, he said.   Travel costs are also deemed to be very expensive.

The Guardian (www.guardian.co.uk) in the United Kingdom reported this week with a headline ”World Cup scramble for Africa fizzles out”, and reflected that fewer German and Dutch tickets have been sold relative to supply.   However, England fans are expected to take up the full allocation of tickets.  To date, 22 479 tickets have been sold to English fans. The article states:”…predictions from the South African organising committee and tourist chiefs that between 40 000 and 50 000 England fans would descend on South Africa as part of a contingent of 450 000 tourists now look over-optimistic. 

Kevin Miles, from the England Football Supporters’ Federation, says it bluntly: “It’s a calculation about the World Cup experience you can get for your restricted funds and a combination of expensive flights, rip-off hotel rates, difficult internal transport, uncertainty about safety and the fact that it is winter.  They all combine to make it a much less attractive proposition”.   The base rate of a tour package from the UK is R 42 000, the Guardian article says.

The Sunday Times yesterday reported that a base package for an England fan flying to and from South Africa, 14 nights accommodation at a 3-star establishment, a ticket for a match each in Rustenburg, Cape Town and Port Elizabeth, and travel between soccer match venues will cost R 60 000 as sold by MATCH-accredited tour operators.   A Brazil fan will pay R 90 000 for a return flight, transfers locally, 12 nights’ accommodation and tickets for the first 3 Brazil matches, while a Mexico fan will pay R 105 000 for a 15-day trip, including the return flight, internal transfers, accommodation, and a ticket for the first three Mexico matches.  International soccer fans say that they will not come to South Africa for the World Cup to be ripped off!

The Communication Workers Union (CWU) has called on the FIFA Local Organising Committee to lower the price of tickets.   The Local Organising Committee has countered this request by stating that South Africans are eligible to buy special low-price Category 4 tickets, at R 140 each.   In 2006 the cheapest tickets in Germany were priced at about R 600 each.   FIFA set the dollar/Rand exchange rate at R 7, to avoid price fluctuations - the Rand is not trading far from this level at the moment.

The Minister of Tourism, Marthinus van Schalkwyk, and the FIFA Local Organising Committee CEO Danny Jordaan, have cautioned the industry against overpricing.  Yet they have not reprimanded MATCH for its excessive rates for accommodation, transport, and ticket prices, in taking a 30 % commission on top of the already high accommodation costs, as well as commission on all other parts of the packages.  The fact that FIFA CEO Sepp Blatter’s nephew is a shareholder in MATCH clearly compromises them!

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