Whale Cottage Portfolio Blog

The Whale Cottage Portfolio has increased the traffic to its website six-fold in one year, since embodying social media marketing, and has exceeded the 30 000 visitorship for the first time this month.  In 2009 a total of just fewer than 200000 unique visitors was recorded.

In January 2009 4850 unique visitors (i.e. unduplicated visitorship) had accessed the website, four months after Whale Cottage had started this blog www.whalecottage.com/blog.   At the end of December this had grown to 27 928 unique visitors.

The major impact on the growth in web traffic has been persistent blogging, with the target of one blog post published per day having been met with one or two exceptions.   Performance improved once the blog posts were posted during mid-morning, instead of just after midnight, when they had just been written.   This post is the 500th written on this WhaleTales blog.

Twitter has made a significant contribution too, with it serving as an “announcement” of what one has blogged about, providing a link to the website which can be accessed for more information, given its 140 character space restriction.   Whale Cottage has close to 700 followers, and has written more than 2 000 tweets to date.   Facebook has played only a small role in contributing to web traffic.

Cross-referencing has also assisted in the growth in Whale Cottage’s visibility, in that the social media links are part of the Whale Cottage e-mail signature; in that the WhaleTales newsletter invites its readers to follow Whale Cottage on Twitter and Facebook; and the blog has an RSS feed link, to enable regular readers to receive the latest WhaleTales blog post, and it has links to the Whale Cottage Twitter and Facebook pages.

New traffic to the website has come from restaurant reviews in particular, especially for new restaurants.  Few restaurants have websites, and do not understand about search engine optimisation.  Some Whale Cottage restaurant reviews have outperformed the restaurant websites in terms of the Google ranking on page one of a search on a specific restaurant.   Where other websites provided a link to the Whale Cottage blog in cases of restaurant controversy (e.g. Portofino, Carne), traffic to the website has been enhanced.

In 2009 the top 10 blog posts that were read most often were the following:

1.   Spar Sweet and Limelight Sour Service Awards (8 838)

2.   Petrol price drop best Christmas present for tourists (5119)

3.   Franschhoek goes Italian (Allora review) (4394)

4.   Rebel restaurateur a hit at Portofino (3 360)

5.   SA presence on top 50 restaurant list grows (2 468)

6.   Prince Albert celebrates in Fresnaye (2 276)

7.   Whales beach on Kommetjie beach (1 984)

8.   Minstrels do it for Cape Town (1 698)

9.   Table Mountain only SA New7wonders nominee (1 570)

10.  Sun Princess to visit Cape Town (1 510)

The most popular restaurants in Cape Town at the moment, based on restaurant reviews accessed on the Whale Cottage Portfolio website via Google this month, are Duchess of Wisbeach, Vaudeville and Kuzina.   

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

The price of petrol and of diesel decreased by 21c per litre at midnight.   This is good news for consumers faced with increased electricity, food and telephone costs.  

 The petrol price decrease could also have a positive effect on the inflation rate, which is showing signs of decreasing, hopefully leading to a further cut in the interest rate.   The decrease also should have a favourable impact on tourism.

Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com

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.

Cash-strapped South Africans are delighted that the Governor of the Reserve Bank, Tito Mboweni, decreased the interest rate by 1 % point, to 7,5 %, yesterday.

Mboweni announced the interest rate cut a day after the official announcement that South Africa is in a recession, having experienced two successive quarters of negative economic growth.   The economy contracted by 6,4 % in the first quarter of 2009, Mining and Manufacturing taking the biggest knocks, at 33 % and 22 %, respectively.   The category “Wholesale, retail, restaurants and hotels” had the smallest decrease, at 2,5 %, while the construction sector grew by 9 %, reports The Times.

Mboweni made his announcement against the background of a downward inflation trend, expected to average 6,9 % this year and 5,5 % in 2010, with food inflation peaking at 17 % but slowing down (Mboweni blamed a food cartel for the high food inflation); the second quarter is expected to have a lower negative growth rate compared to the first quarter; and the global downturn is showing “tentative signs” of “bottoming out”, according to Moneyweb.

The interest rate cut is the fifth since Mboweni started cutting the interest rate in December 2008.   Consumers are hoping for a drop in the price of petrol next Wednesday too.

South Africans received two pieces of good news on the eve of the Worker’s Day long weekend:   the interest rate decreased by 1 percentage point, and the price of petrol will decrease by 3 c per litre on Wednesday 6 May.  

The third 1 % point decrease in three months is excellent news for cash-strapped South Africans, who are starting to feel the effect of the global credit crunch.   For the hospitality industry the steady decrease in the interest rate is a welcome relief as the industry goes into the seasonal winter slump between May and August.

While the petrol price decrease is only 3c per litre, it is a welcome reversal of the steadily increasing price of petrol since the beginning of the year.   The stronger Rand at the moment may be part of the reason for the reduced petrol price.

The 1 % cut in the interest rate, down to 14 %, is widely welcomed, and should be excellent news for the tourism industry.   

The announcement by Reserve Bank Governor Tito Mboweni yesterday was accompanied by a warning to local politicians about the global credit crunch, and the effect that it could have on South Africa.   “We are going to go through a rough patch over the next three or four years”, he said, reports Business Report.  He did not foresee a recession for South Africa, but described the recent World Economic Forum as “a memorial service for the world economy”!

Mboweni wanted to cut the rate by 2 percentage points, he said, but stated that his committee had urged him to take a more cautious approach to the interest rate cut.  A further 1 % cut in April appears likely.

The interest rate cut good news should offset the disappointing increase by 61 cents per litre in the price of petrol earlier this week.

It is a shame that the price of petrol should rise by 61 cents today, given the steady decline that motorists became used to since late last year.   The new price is R 6,38 per litre at the coast.

An already depressed tourism industry in the country areas thrives on a reasonable petrol price.   However, a tank of petrol should cost just under R 400.

The anticipated decrease in the interest rate next week, by 1 percentage point it is hoped, is eagerly awaited by South African consumers, as retrenchments and the global credit crunch take their toll at all levels.

In the past two days newspapers have been quoting from a Cape Town Routes Unlimited media release about the status of the festive season, creating a confusing picture as to whether the season has been a good or bad one.

What is surprising is that the festive season is not yet over, and already Cape Town Routes Unlimited (CTRU) is trying to draw comparisons between this season and that of last year, before it has come to an end, with many visitors only returning to start work on Monday 12 January.

The Cape Times report quotes CTRU as stating:”…they (Tourism Managers) had experienced a festive season that was “similar or better” than those in previous years”    However, the article does not state which Managers CTRU refers to.   Further reference is made to tourism having improved on the West Coast, the Winelands, and Central Karoo, with a decline in the Garden Route, Klein Karroo and Robertson and Montagu, two towns which were affected by floods in November.   The basis of the trend information is not specified.   Surprisingly, no mention is made of Cape Town’s festive season success, which has been exceptional and continues until the end of this week.

The Cape Times artcle also states that the Airports Company serviced more passengers in December 2008 compared to a year ago.   This trend was also experienced by the V & A Waterfront, and in Kirstenbosch, while the Table Mountain Aerial Cableway Company had its worst performance in 10 years in December, due to the weather.

Business Report quotes FEDHASA CEO Brett Dungan as saying that “tourists were spending less, but Cape Town and Durban were still busy”.  One wonders where he sourced his information, and how it is quantified, as the FEDHASA Cape office is still closed, and the FEDHASA offices in KwaZulu-Natal having stated that the area had experienced a very poor season a week ago, according to media reports.

The future looks good, with February predicted to be an excellent tourism month.   Whale Cottage Camps Bay, for example, already has an occupancy of 90 % for February, more than three weeks before the start of the month.  This used to be the case in November too, but the booking pattern was extremely last minute in November 2008, yet resulted in the same occupancy rate as in the year before.

Rented cars were hard to find over the festive season.  One of the most popular companies, Value Car Hire, had no stock over the New Year, with availability from this week onwards for the first time.

The decrease in the price of petrol yesterday, by more than R 1,30 a litre, is an excellent note on which to start 2009, which many say will be a challenging one, due to the global credit crunch.

The drop in the price of petrol by R 1,35 per litre at midnight is most welcome for the tourism industry, bringing the new price of petrol at the coast to R 5,76 per litre, the same price as in March 2007!   The decrease in the petrol price is larger than was estimated last week.

The price of diesel has dropped by R 1,68 per litre, to R 6, 39 per litre.

The drop in the price of petrol and diesel will have a positive effect on tourism, and should make itself felt in an increase in tourism to the Garden Route and country towns and villages, as well as in a decrease in food prices, which should reduce the rate of inflation, which should bring about a cut in the interest rate in February.   This is welcome news for cash-strapped South Africans, who probably over-extended themselves over the festive season.

The price of petrol is set to decrease by between R 1, 05 - R 1, 11 per litre on 7 January 2009, according to the Shell South Africa website.    This brings the price of unleaded petrol to just over R 6 per litre.

The decrease in the price of petrol is excellent news for the tourism industry, in that it will encourage South Africans to travel again, despite continued forecasts for a tough 2009.   Further predictions for a decrease in the interest rate will stimulate the tourism industry too.