Whale Cottage Portfolio Blog

A media conference called by Dr Laurine Platzky, Western Cape Deputy Director-General Governance & Integration and 2010 FIFA World Cup Co-ordinator, and the World Future Society of South Africa, on Monday highlighted the way forward for South Africa in the next twenty years.   The positive ethos and energy generated by the World Cup will stand South Africa in good stead to maintain its level of excellence into the future, said the speakers.

Mike Lee, Founder of the World Future Society of South Africa, focused on the legacies of the World Cup.  The Rainbow Nation-building benefit is an “historic bridge”, connecting South Africans. It is a “moment in our destiny”, and paves the path to our country’s future, he said.  He highlighted five priorities for South Africa for the period until 2030 :   1. Improve the country’s ethics and standards   2. An economy growing at 7% per annum, to “meaningfully reduce poverty and unemployment”  3.The education system must be reformed   4. The ecosystem must be rescued   5. The country must undergo an energy revolution, moving away from coal-based energy to renewable and nuclear energy.   “The World Cup has renewed our licence to dream”, Lee said.

Dr Platzky focused on the legacy of the World Cup, and this was the infrastructure improvements, she said, Cape Town Stadium having become an iconic asset of the province.   She admonished local businesses for not having embraced the event well enough in bidding for the manufacture of memorabilia and clothing, rather than letting the contracts go to the Far East.   She said that the construction and hospitality industries had been the biggest winners of the World Cup, and stated that South Africa had been cushioned from the worst ravages of the recession because of hosting the World Cup.   The event has also led to “social cohesion”, creating an exceptional memory for school children, who will remember the event for their rest of their lifetime, and who also had the opportunity to learn about 31 other participating countries in their school projects, and also about other cities and towns in South Africa.   The legacy of the World Cup is also environmental, she said, with 41 “Green Goal” projects focusing on the long-term sustainability environmentally.   These projects will be taken to Brazil for the 2014 World Cup as well. She also mentioned that South Africans should proudly take recognition for their achievements in hosting the World Cup so successfully, rather than sitting back for the international media to tell us so.

Guy Lundy is the CEO of Accelerate Cape Town, and his first observation was the good winter weather during the World Cup – 5 sunny days and only 3 rainy days on match days - proving that Cape Town should not have tourism seasonality.   He also felt that ex-South Africans should no longer have to be apologetic about their country of origin, and should be proudly calling themselves “South Africans living abroad”.   He predicted an increase in wine sales due to the World Cup, and Cape Town’s marketability as a skills outsourcing centre.    He predicted that the World Cup would improve Cape Town’s chances of winning the 2014 World Design Capital bid.   The World Cup must lead to greater job creation, he said, and South Africans must become more positive, in not always waiting for the next disaster.   He said the country had an enormous potential to improve due to the World Cup.

Merle O’Brien is the Deputy President of the World Future Society, and spoke about the World Cup “gees” creating “social cohesion”, in making a collective “we” nation and society of South Africans.   The ethos of South Africans now would be Ubuntu and Ke Nako, the human spirit that will connect locals that are no longer commercially-driven but rather spirit-driven.

In question time, Dr Platzky was challenged about the duplicity of market research which is currently taking place in Cape Town (the Western Cape Province, Cape Town Routes Unlimited, the City of Cape Town, and Cape Town Tourism), all conducting unprofessional informal research and using these results to make media announcements on the basis thereof.  She agreed that the 50 interviews done by her department at the airport last week “was a bit of a joke” (even though the “9/10 rating” became the lead front-page story of the Cape Times).  She confirmed that professional research would be conducted to establish the benefits of the World Cup for Cape Town and the Western Cape.

More details about the World Future Society of South Africa can be found at www.wfs-sa.com.

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

If Social Media Marketing performance is anything to go by, the World Cup is an outstanding success.

Twitter has shown record usage since the start of the World Cup on 11 June, often crashing due to overload when a World Cup match is underway, fans of a particular team egging on their players to do better, or to praise them for a good performance.  Twitter has a “fail-whale” sign when it is over-capacity.

If the Whale Cottage Portfolio WhaleTales blog is anything to go by, then the blogosphere has reached record heights.  With steadily climbing unique readership of about 30 000 per month, the current unique readership for the first 21 days in June is already at 84025, meaning that the total for June could be close to 120 000, an unprecedented performance.   The unique readership peaked on the opening day of the World Cup on 11 June, at a record 8182.   Of the stories that have been written on our blog to date, the following posts have been the most widely read this month, proving that the World Cup dominates interest over any other topic, such as restaurant reviews:

               1.  Cape Town Restaurant Winter Blues specials

               2.  Table Mountain only SA new 7wonders nominee

               3.   World Cup 2010 FIFA flop

               4.   FIFA Ticket Collection Sweet and Good Food & Wine Show Sour Awards

               5.   Restaurant Reviewer receives harsh reviews about review

               6.   Cape Town parties through the World Cup

               7.   World Cup match attendance: staying on the FIFA ball

               8.   Cape Town blows the largest vuvuzela

               9.   Cape Town drowning in hotel beds

              10.  World Cup puts SA into focus, some bad, most good 

Tags (blog-speak for keywords) too are of interest, and reflect the world’s focus on the World Cup, and the following were most used tags, connecting Google and other search engine users to the Whale Cottage Portfolio website:

               1.   USA Today

               2.   Minister of Tourism

               3.   World Cup 2010

               4.   Confederations Cup

               5.   Fan parks

               6.   Grant Thornton (the tourism consultancy that did forecasts of World Cup attendance)

              7.    Ivanka Trump (who spent her honeymoon in the Cape earlier this year)   

              8.   Vuvuzela

              9.   2010

              10.  Prince William (attended the England versus Algeria game)

Ten days ago the Whale Cottage Portfolio Whale Tales Blog was registered with www.amatomu.com for  the first time, a Top SA Blogsites site measuring web traffic.   The growth in traffic has moved the Whale Cottage Portfolio Blog to the top 20 list, being in 16th position of all blogs in South Africa today.

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

A report in the Cape Argus two days ago described the desperate attempt by Cape Town Routes Unlimited’s Marketing executive David Frandsen to obtain funding from Parliament for the marketing of Cape Town in Germany for the 2010 World Cup.

The report reflects the sad state of affairs as far as marketing Cape Town and the Western Cape province goes, and was highlighted in aWhaleTales blog report and letter to the Cape Argus about the lack of marketing of Cape Town just a few days ago.  No response was received to it from Cape Town Tourism, Cape Town Routes Unlimited or any other tourism players.

According to the report, the 2010 marketing campaign for Germany has been cancelled by Cape Town Routes Unlimited,  and it is likely that further 2010 marketing campaigns for the city and the province may be cancelled due to a lack of marketing funds.

The report states that the head of the parliamentary committee on trade and international relations said that the provincial government and the city should “‘urgently’ rethink their funding model and help where necessary”.   The City’s response, via its Deputy Mayor Ian Neilson, is that Cape Town Tourism is doing the job, and that any change in the funding can only be considered in 6 months from now.   He also referred to the collaboration that is meant to be happening between Cape Town Routes Unlimited and Cape Town Tourism, following a meeting of the CEO’s of these two organisations, and their respective political heads Alan Winde and Felicity Purchase.  The nature of the collaboration has not yet been communicated to the industry, despite the meeting having taken place more than 10 weeks ago. 

The Cape Argus report states that at the Cape Town Tourism/Cape Town Routes Unlimited meeting, Cape Town Routes Unlimited had been told to find alternative funding, to fill the R 24 million void created by the withdrawal of the City of Cape Town’s funding.  

Both tourism bodies are doing little or no marketing, in a month which sees forward bookings looking most dismal, with a projected occupancy to be the lowest this year, and worse than any September before.

Cape Town Tourism sent out a media release to co-incide with Tourism Month, which started on 1 September, but seems full of empty rhetoric.   “During Tourism Month, Live It, Love It, LOUDER!is focused on celebrating “My Cape Town” - an exploration of the different corners of our hometown and a window into the lives of the people who live there. Capetonians will also learn more about their hometown in readiness for the role as world cup hosts.  To showcase this personal perspective of Cape Town, the “My Cape Town” Flickr Pic competition is being launched on 1 September with the theme “This is the Cape Town I Want the World to see”.  Enthusiastic photographers and proud citizens can submit their entries via www.capetown.travel/worldtourismmonthand stand a chance of winning a cash prize of R15 000″ says Cape Town Tourism’s Mariette du Toit-Helmbold. 

Cape Town Routes Unlimited got some Capetonians together, and taught them how to do the Diski-dance, in preparation for the 2010 World Cup.   Cape Town Routes Unlimited has also just launched a “Beyond the 90 Minutes” campaign, to encourage soccer fans to visit other parts of the Western Cape when they come to Cape Town to see the matches.   Six themed itineraries, including Adrenaline Adventure; Gourmet; Culture and Heritage; Natural Beauty;  Body, Mind & Spirit; and Cosmopolitan Vibe have been presented on the www.tourismcapetown.co.za website.   Locals and the media are also addressed on the ‘Beyond the 90 Minutes’ section of the website, and special accommodation offers are promoted for this month already.

Cape Town Routes Unlimited has also launched a World Cup 2010 Soccer Fan competition.  “South African soccer fans are known for their outrageous, fun and colourfully decorated costumes and accessories worn at matches to show support for their favourite team. Soccer fans from other countries attending the 2010 FIFA World Cup™ in South Africa are also expected to come all decked out in support of their national side.  CTRU is looking for the liveliest, most inspired and colourful pictures of fans at soccer matches from around the world. All they have to do is post their best photo on the ‘Beyond the 90 Minutes’ Flickr group at www.flickr.com before 31 October 2009. Not only do they stand the chance to win a Cape Town and Western Cape 2010 travel package worth R50 000 including accommodation and meals, but also a special, limited edition makarapa (a decorated miners’ helmet unique to South African soccer fans and fast becoming a ‘must-have’ fashion item) of their very own”  says the Cape Town Routes Unlimited media release.

Whale Cottage Portfolio www.whalecottage.com

With just over nine months to go before the 2010 World Cup, the marketing for Cape Town and the Western Cape appears to have become close to invisible.

About a year ago Cape Town Tourism was given the mandate by its members to accept the City of Cape Town’s directive to manage the marketing of Cape Town, a job previously done by Cape Town Routes Unlimited.    A Marketing Strategy was to have been prepared by Mariette du Toit-Helmbold, the bubbly Cape Town Tourism CEO, and she spent many hours obtaining input from members of the tourism industry to develop such a strategy, and a positioning for Cape Town.   She was a prolific writer and sent out numerous media releases.   The last release sent out by Cape Town Tourism, however,  was over a month ago, on 21 July.  

Cape Town Tourism has added a 2010 World Cup page to its website, and it is printing two issues of its Visitor’s Guide, instead of the usual one issue per year.  This appears to be the sum total of its current marketing activity.

At the time of her many brainstorming sessions, Du Toit-Helmbold favoured a positioning for Cape Town as the centre for innovation, design and creativity, but this has not been translated into a pay-off line, and it is not visible in the design of Cape Town Tourism’s website and letterhead.   The signature at the bottom of Du Toit-Helmbold’s e-mails has the pay-off line for Cape Town: “Living Cape Town.  Loving Cape Town”.    The website does not carry this pay-off line at all, but justifies the official Cape Town website www.capetown.travel as follows:” your trusted, impartial guide to Cape Town”.  The company started Twittering actively about three months ago, but now is invisible on Twitter. 

Cape Town Routes Unlimited is even quieter, and only sends out a weekly Events newsletter to the industry, and irregular CEO newsletters with far too many photographs, mainly of its CEO Calvyn Gilfillan.   An industry newsletter which helped inform tourism players has silently disappeared.

The CEO’s of Cape Town Tourism and of Cape Town Routes Unlimited last month met with the new Tourism heads in the City of Cape Town and Western Cape, Felicity Purchase and Alan Winde, respectively.  Could Du Toit-Helmbold have been silenced since attending this meeting?   The dates appear to coincide.

Interestingly, media reports earlier this year indicated that Cape Town Tourism had been awarded the marketing of Cape Town for another year, instead of referring to a three-year contract having been signed.   It intimated that the City had to seek tenders for the marketing, and could not just hand this over to Cape Town Tourism, as had been made public a year ago.   No information about a tender process, and the winner thereof, has been made public.

The meeting between Cape Town Tourism and Cape Town Routes Unlimited would have covered the prevention of duplication in the two marketing bodies’ marketing activities, and collaboration, where possible.  No further communication has been received in this regard from either body since the meeting last month.

Guy Lundy, CEO of Accelerate Cape Town, an organisation that connects with businesspersons to attract and stimulate economic growth for Cape Town, has criticised the marketing that is being done for Cape Town, reports the Cape Argus.   He too complains that too little marketing is being done, and that which is being done, is wrong, he says.   “Branding Cape Town as Africa’s party city for the World Cup should never have happened”, he said.   “The World Cup is that one opportunity we have to showcase the city to the world.  We don’t want to market ourselves like another Ibiza.”   Lundy says that Cape Town has changed its pay-off line from “Africa’s party capital” to “ready to welcome the world”, a line which was used in a few ads run in the local Cape Town newspapers, without much credibility, given that all the major Cape Town roads, its airport, the Cape Town station, and the rapid bus transport system are not yet ready for the 2010 World Cup!

Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com

The second phase of ticket sales for the FIFA 2010 World Cup commenced on Monday this week, this time on a first come, first served basis.

Within the first eight hours of ticket sales opening on 4 May, 185 000 applications were received, 100 000 being for individual matches and 85 000 for team-specific matches.   Only 100 000 tickets in total are available for sale in this second phase.   Each individual may apply for four tickets, up to a total of seven matches, to ensure that all ticket applicants have a fair chance of being able to buy tickets. 

At the end of April FIFA notified over 250 000 applicants as to their success in buying tickets for the matches between 11 June and 11 July next year.   The ticket sales in the first phase were done on the basis of a random ticket draw.

The Final in Johannesburg appears to be sold out, and most of the lower priced tickets for the semi-finals in Cape Town and Durban have also been sold.

Two further ticket sale phases will enable soccer fans to bid for tickets.

The first World Cup 2010 language training has started, resulting from an initiative by the Argentinian University of Buenos Aires’  Language Centre, reports the Cape Argus.  

The University has tied up with a local company called Armiger, and is starting Spanish lessons in Mossel Bay, teaching tourism players, security staff and emergency services staff.   Spanish is one of FIFA’s top five languages.

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.

“Handelsblatt, a German business daily, reported yesterday about the “dramatically bad” ticket sales for the Confederation Cup. Apparently the SA government blamed the sponsors for not doing enough to promote the Confederation Cup and the World Cup to be staged in South Africa next year - and FIFA blamed the SA organisers.”

“In turn, the organisers blamed the local population for their disinterest in the events.”

“All in all, not a nice message to send around the world.” 

“I translated the article (below).”

“The World Cup ticket sales are progressing marginally better. In the first three weeks fans in 140 countries applied for 506,000 tickets (3.3 million tickets are up for sale). ”

“The interesting part is, however, that only 20% of that 506,000 and also just 20% of the “dramatically bad” sales of tickets for the Confederation Cup have been bought by South Africans. And this irritates the local organising committee. Although it shouldn’t.”

“Buying tickets in advance like this, is not “the culture” in South Africa. Decisions of this kind (and generally!) are made much more spontaneously than in Europe, where households plan their lives carefully months (if not years) into the future. South Africans are “last minute champions” - and I suspect the weak demand for tickets have something to do with this.”

“Also true is, of course, that the South African sporting public has traditionally been unable to get fired up about sporting events featuring “third parties” (teams other than their own). And this might be happening again with the Confederation Cup. That is, of course, a disaster in the making.”

“I suspect the World Cup event won’t have that problem. But, one can’t be sure and I’m eagerly waiting to see whether a football game between (say) Australia and Ireland in a stadium close to the Limpopo can draw a full house.”

“But, now on a more serious note. Both FIFA and the SA government should by now be on “red alert” regarding the ticket sales. And not for the reasons mentioned above, but for quite another reason (actually two reasons). Special meetings should already have been convened by a crisis committee to decide a crisis plan of action to promote both events, for the following reasons:

* The global economic crisis
* Crime and the political instability of 2008 in SA, which reached a low point with a killing-spree of non-South Africans. (Also read here.)”

“These two “events” have it in them to turn the FIFA World Cup 2010 into a flop. Don’t underestimate any one of these factors. Separately they are dangerous; together they are potentially lethal. The second one threatens to keep Africa away and the first one to keep the rest of the world away.”

“Just the fact that 70% of all hospitality packages for the World Cup in Germany in 2006 was bought by financial institutions (eg. banks), should already have switched the alarm bells on at the FIFA head office in Switzerland…(read here)…should have signalled to them that 2010 was not going to be a “business as usual” World Cup.”

“In short, much like the governments of the world have announced “Rettungspakette” for their economies, FIFA and the SA government should put a “Rettungspaket” together for the World Cup event. The implementation thereof can’t wait much longer.”

“The package could include steps, such as, the drastic reduction of prices of the cheapest World Cup tickets. At between $20 and $900 tickets are too expensive for South Africans and this might be another reason for the slow sales. A benchmark: For games in SA’s top league, spectators usually pay around $10.”

“The number of free tickets (140,000) set aside for locals could also be increased, but a $10 ticket would, in principle, be better than a free ticket.”

“Here the article as it appeared in Handelsblatt:

JOHANNESBURG/DÜSSELDORF. Government spokesman Themba Maseko replied on Wednesday to views aired by FIFA that South Africans are showing to little enthusiasm for the Confederation Cup to be staged from 14 to 28 June this year in their country. Maseko said after a cabinet meeting: The SA government is also concerned about the fact that South Africans are not buying tickets and thinks not enough money is being put into promoting the Confederation Cup and World Cup. In the next two weeks all communications and advertising strategies will be revisited.

The lack of promotion has financial roots, but also has to do with planning and coordination problems, said Maseko. The sponsors are part-responsible, since they do not advertise enough. Although many of them will launch their advertising campaigns in the coming weeks, eg. on softdrink cans.

Earlier FIFA general secretary Jerome Valcke said in Johannesburg the stadiums will be ready, but no advertising is visible. Both events should immediately be advertised much more. “There is nothing - not even at the airport - indicating that Johannesburg is a host city of Confederation Cup games. I haven’t seen a single advertisement for the Confederation Cup to date,” said Valcke. “It is, however, impossible to get the people into the stadiums, without promotion of the event,” he said.

Still earlier Danny Jordan, boss of the local organising committee (NOK), had aired his unhappiness about the fact that only 20% of the tickets for both events have been bought by South Africans. For the Confederation Cup only 170,000 have been sold to date - with 646,000 still looking for owners. A total of 506,000 applications have been received by FIFA for World Cup tickets.

Jordan criticised the sceptical attitude of the South African citizens. “In Canada and Australia the people are more euphoric about 2010 than in South Africa. And the same is happening with the Confederation Cup,” he complained. “

Source: www.thebigpond.eu