Three Of The Best On Our Doorstep

Yes, we have three blue flag beaches right here in Hermanus. Hawston Beach, Grotto Beach and Kleinmond Beach.
South Africa is the only country outside of Europe that adheres to the international criteria when it comes to the grading our beaches. I certainly hope that you are pointing this fact out to your potential guests.

Social Media Marketing, Get To Grips With It...

Overheard in a marketing meeting recently, "Oh, I prefer looking at adverts in a hard copy magazine."

Is this a form of intelectual suicide? Can one really afford to sit back and not engage in cutting edge technology and the most exciting marketing possibilities. A doctor refers you to a specialist for in-depth analysis. Why, because the specialist has kept abreast of latest discoveries, innovations and remedies by spending valuable time researching his particular subject on the web.

Surely then, it goes without saying that, making use of modern technology at our fingertips is the way to go?

The emergence of social media and the resulting shift of control from suppliers to consumers - who increasingly distrust formal advertising and instead make choices based on online word-of-mouth, reviews and referrals from their online friends - constitute the biggest media revolution of our times. Spending on social media advertising has increased dramatically recently while print media advertising is in decline.

Social media also means that, if it is used effectively, any small business can now compete with and have the same global advertising reach as big international companies. Where has this been possible before? An active social media marketing campaign is far more effective than a dull stagnant website or magazine ad.

Because of smart phones and the mobile web, people now have instant access to their social network applications as they travel, which is not possible with their desk PC. Smart phones are going to take over from notebooks and laptops internationally before we know it.

Social media marketing is here to stay, for good. Embrace this technology and prosper.

How Compatible Is Your Website?

With more and more people acquiring and using the advanced features of smartphones, is your Website compatible with these browsers?

Just because you can view your website layout as you designed it on your PC screen, don't be fooled. It looks nothing like that on my Blackberry. Text boxes and images are scrambled as if the web designer was on his dose of tic.

Have your web designer make the necessary changes to the site, as more and more people are moving away from browsing on their PC's and finger-tapping on their smartphones.

Just You Wait Enry Iggins, Just You Wait

I read this article this morning and just had to share it with all of you.

The brits were slating SA for raising prices prior to the World Cup and in the far reaches of my little brain I kept thinking- Just you wait Enry Iggins, just you wait... Let's now wait for the security issues (which we did not have I might add) to crop up. And with Mr Cameron's fiscal cuts coming along nicely. Show me a South African hotel which doubled its room rate and I'll show you...

Hotels are set to more than double their prices during the 2012 Olympic Games, but doing so could cause long-term damage to corporate business an expert has claimed.
Basing its predictions on data gathered during the Vancouver Winter Olympics, market intelligence company Rubicon believes hotels in the capital (London) can expect to see profits leap during the summer of 2012.
However, hoteliers are being warned to watch their margins so as not to turn off business from the corporate sector, which is expected to plunge by up to 80 per cent during the period.

Andy Storey, managing director for Rubicon Europe, said that high room rates could potentially damage business in the long term. "Generally hotel owners fail to put enough attention on the shoulder seasons either side of sporting events, and this is what causes them to do worse than in ‘normal' years," he said. "It is no surprise that hotels will be busy during the event itself, but London properties should heed warnings and set pricing and market accordingly."

By Becky Paskin - ehotelior.com

We Are In The Top Ten

Top 10 Attractions in Cape Town & Western Cape

1. Table Mountain Cable Way
Table Mountain, the breathtaking backdrop and icon of Cape Town & the Western Cape extends its welcome to all visitors. The Cableway takes you to the summit in under 10 minutes and the cable car's rotating floor ensure that all passengers get a 360 degree aerial view of the city.

2.Victoria & Alfred Waterfront
The very epitome of African chic, the V&A Waterfront a unique shopping & entertainment environment, is South Africa's most visited tourist attraction with about 10 million visitors a year.

3. Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens
Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden is world-renowned for the beauty and diversity of the Cape flora it displays and for the magnificence of its setting against the eastern slopes of Table Mountain. Kirstenbosch grows only indigenous South African plants.

4. Robben Island
Robben Island, some seven kilometres off the coast of Cape Town, is where former South African President and Nobel Laureate Nelson Mandela, alongside many other political prisoners, spent decades imprisoned during the apartheid era.

5. Cape Agulhas - southernmost tip of Africa!
Cape Agulhas is the southernmost tip of the vast African continent where the mighty Indian and Atlantic oceans meet. Interestingly, a compass shows no real deviation between true north and magnetic north at this spot, and Agulhas also boasts one of the oldest working lighthouses in South Africa.

6. Cape Point Nature Reserve
Cape Point is the southwestern most tip of Africa and forms part of the Table Mountain National Park which stretches from Signal Hill in the north to Cape Point in the south. Nowhere else in the world does an area of such spectacular beauty and such rich bio-diversity exist almost entirely within a cosmopolitan city. Since 2004, it also forms part of the Cape Floral World Heritage Site.

7. The Whale Coast
Drive to the fishing village of Hawston and stop at Hermanus - the world's best land-based whale-watching spot. Hermanus is the only town in the world to boast a Whale Crier who ensures that visitors don't miss out on spotting the oceans gentle giants.

8. The Cape Winelands
Take a drive along the Western Cape's many wine routes and visit global award winning wine farms for a spot of wine tasting, cellar tours and an opportunity to purchase some good local, internationally recognised wines.

9. The Garden Route
From Mossel Bay to Plettenberg Bay, the Garden Route with its lush forests and wide meandering rivers is an adventure playground for scuba diving, golfing, surfing, snorkelling, kayaking, canoeing, rafting, biking, hiking, flying, hang-gliding, paragliding, ballooning and parachuting ... and bungee jumping!

10. The West Coast's wild flowers & fishing villages
The Cape West Coast dotted with fishing villages like Yzerfontein, St Helena Bay and Elandsbaai, is also renowned for its spectacular shows of spring wild flowers (July to October) where more than 8 600 species of flowers occur of which 68 percent are found nowhere else in the world.

Why A Static Website?

You may have designed a website for your hotel ages ago, and even spent a lot of money to do so, thinking that you would only have to do it once. Unfortunately, you were wrong. Like everything else related to running a business, updates are required to ensure continuing success. Imagine if you had been running a retail clothing outlet since the 1980s. Would you still be selling the same clothes you offered twenty or more years ago? Actually, with the way fashion trends recycle, you might be.

The point is, you need to get with the times! An outdated website can quickly become a detriment to the progress and growth of your business, even if you think it has all the elements required to attract patrons to your hotel. So here are just a few reasons you might want to consider an overhaul that brings your site out of the dark ages and into the bright glow of a computer monitor.

1. Refresh to impress.

2. Connect with new clients.
3. Compete, for goodness sake!
4. De-clutter.
5. Get trendy.

Source: Travel Wires

Spend Money To Make Money

Further to the earlier blog: The Cape Whale Coast Destination Marketing Organisation (CWC DMO) should put together a grand scale marketing package for overseas travel agents. Select the group carefuly and invite them here and then 'Wine 'n Dine' them with a slick performance that would win Oscars.

"All it takes is a little planning to reap great rewards", so says Dave Snoek partner in Southern Stroll Marketing, a Hermanus based destination and retail marketing company.

Much More Awareness Required

For those of you that thought the SWC 2010 was going to solve all your hospitality woes, think again and be proactive. The geographic spread does not appear to be improving despite claims that the World Cup increased awareness of other destinations within South Africa say operators and tourism suppliers dealing with South Africa.

Overseas visitors tend to stick to the better known destinations such as Kruger and Cape Town because of the long-haul nature of the destination for them says Douwe Baas, Director of Suid Afrika Reise in The Netherlands. “A holiday to South Africa for three weeks, inclusive of intercontinental flights, costs at least €3 000pp and that’s a lot of money. In fact too much money to take risks to go somewhere that has not been written about.”
Baas furthers that the problem may also lie with the trade who are afraid to sell the lesser known destinations due to the increased sales calls necessary to convert customers which in turn poses a financial risk to a company.

Vickie Baehner, an Independent Contractor for Travelstore Inc. based in the United States, says that she is not currently receiving requests from her clients for any alternative destinations in South Africa besides the mainstream ones. She furthers that she does not feel confident in selling other destinations because she does not feel her knowledge of the country is enough to sufficiently navigate around properly.
Baehner also says that the nature of American travel does not lend well to travelling to far out and less accessible destinations: “The difficulty for American travellers seems to be the breadth of the land, the high cost of transport and the time needed to reach more places. Americans do not take long holidays. This is a problem for travel planning no matter where they travel.”

Belgium-based Julien Roelants, the Managing Director of Travel Worldwide, says that he hasn’t seen any request for new destinations, but suggests that perhaps a solution would be to better market these other destinations to international markets and suggests the appearance of provincial tourism boards on travel shows on national television networks overseas. Roelants also says that travel documentaries on destinations other than the Kruger and the Cape would help greatly in raising awareness.
Baas says that his company is however being proactive about marketing other destinations such as the Karoo and Eastern Cape by preparing packages ahead of a travel fair to be held soon in Utrecht that will be available on Suid Afrika Reise’s website.

Source: SA Tourism Update

City Card For Cape Town

Cape Town Tourism (CTT) is boosting its self-generated income by developing its own retail range and launching a ‘City Card’ for visitors and locals that is linked to the city's new public transport system.
Making the announcement at the association's recent AGM, CEO Mariëtte du Toit-Helmbold, said other focus areas for the future were:
• Repositioning Cape Town's brand to ensure it remained relevant after the World Cup.
• Media and trade relations in new markets such as South America and the Far East.
• Continued investment and keeping up with global trends in online and mobile tools as 70% of travel decisions and bookings were now made online. CTT is hosting the third annual E-Tourism Africa summit in Cape Town on October 25 and 26.
• Developing Phase Two of a new data management system that will result in a more effective booking system. Phase One is already in place.
• Developing an events strategy in co-operation with the Cape Town municipality to attract more key events during the low season.

She appealed to the city's private and public sectors to find creative, innovative techniques to market the city, stressing that the success of the World Cup needed to be followed up with visible, accessible offers that appealed to a recession-battered world. She warned that already attention was shifting away from SA to Brazil, the World Cup host in 2014.
CTT Chairman, Ian Bartes, said by 2020 Cape Town wanted to be Africa's top city and among the top ten in the world to visit, live, work, study and invest in. CTT's vision was to double the economic impact of tourism on the city by 2020.
He said CTT's task during the next three years would be to maximise the long-term benefits created by the World Cup while addressing seasonality through events and business tourism. The CTT Board would focus on developing a broader strategy for the city that would guide future tourism development and marketing.

Source: SA Tourism Update

UK Feels We Are Bad Value For Money

An international expert on destination marketing says Cape Town’s strong and recognisable brand must be used to market the city and the province internationally.

The local tourism marketing structure is under review as Western Cape MEC of Finance, Economic Development & Tourism, Alan Winde, seeks to unify all marketing under one organisation and brand, a process that is pitting city marketer Cape Town Tourism (CTT) and provincial marketer Cape Town Routes Unlimited (CTRU) against each other.

Speaking at CTT’s AGM yesterday, CTT Chairman, Ian Bartes, urged for the current uncertainty to be resolved as soon as possible, saying it is impeding CTT’s ability to plan ahead.

Keynote speaker, Claes Bjerkne, CEO of Bjerkne & Co, a Swedish destination marketing consultancy, said the city and province should work together to develop a tourism strategy, “but it’s a waste of time not to use the strong city brand”. He suggested: “Let Cape Town be the driving force in the process of developing tourism in the city as well as the province.” He proposed local tourism marketers combine brand Cape Town with topics of interest - such as wine, whales, flowers, culture, golf and wildlife - to entice visitors further into the region.

Cape Town City Council Mayoral Committee for Economic Development & Tourism, Felicity Purchase, expressed continued confidence in CTT as the city’s marketer. The city will fund CTT to the tune of R38m for the next financial year.

Source: SA Tourism Update

Do You Use A Content Management System?

First, just about any website designer can provide a Content Management System (CMS) for your hotel website, but there are some very good reasons why smart hoteliers don't use them. If you are only relying on your webmaster to make the changes to your site that you request, you are sadly missing the boat. A good webmaster should be working with you to make improvements to your site.
Assuming you have selected a website designer with hotel marketing experience, I encourage you to collaborate with them to continually tweak and improve your site based upon the results you are getting from it. There are many knowledgeable site designers looking to become your Internet marketing partner.

A well-designed hotel site is one which will attract visitors through organic search and has carefully developed content to convert visitors into reservations. These two functions are highly dependent upon knowledgeable composition and writing skills. You have heard the phrase 'content is king'; developing content for your hotel site and maintaining effective content requires knowledge of search engine requirements as well as how and why travelers choose hotels on the Internet.
Sure, you may save a few dollars by making these adjustments and changes yourself, but making changes yourself can also destroy the effectiveness of your site. When changes are made to your site, they often require research for additional keywords to be added to that text to optimize search find ability and create internal link development.

So get rid of your webmaster. To me, this just demonstrates a lack of knowledge of how hotel websites work. Making content changes to your website requires more than knowledge of HTML technology. Their suggestion indicates they believe in the old-style design-it, publish-it, and say-goodbye theory of site design; an out-dated concept. Today's web designers should take responsibility for the site's reservation production after it is published. Since most of us are not plumbers or electricians, we can create ezPlumer and ezLectric. These new and free products will allow you to get rid of your plumber and electrician so you can make changes to these systems yourself. Once a hotel is built, I'm sure it doesn't matter how changes and additions to plumbing and electric are made; it even sounds silly, but hey, it's an idea.

From the ridiculous to the honest and realistic, let's consider the effects of time restrictions. There are many hoteliers that have difficulty finding the time necessary to even discuss changes and additions with their webmaster; let-alone to actually make those changes to their own site. What about keeping up with new Internet technology and changing search engine requirements.
It's a very attractive proposition to be able to make your own site changes using CMS, but in reality, it is neither practical nor beneficial for most hotels.

White Whales Are Right Whales

African Wings photographed a mother and baby duo of Southern Right whales swimming in Walker Bay recently. Albinism has been documented in 20 cetacean species, including humpback whales, sperm whales, pilot whales, and bottlenose dolphins. White (not necessarily true albinos) killer whales and southern right whales have also been documented.

Albinism is inherited, and occurs when both parents carry the recessive gene for the condition and the offspring receives both of the genes. Albinism causes a lack of melanin, the chemical which causes pigmentation, in the body.

Some animals do have pigment, but it is not expressed well, and these animals are white or lighter-colored than usual, but not true albinos. These animals have dark eyes, which may be the case with the animal that was photographed in Walker Bay. This condition is called leucism, and occurs when pigment is expressed only in certain regions of the body.

Post-World Cup Blues

A recent survey has revealed that post-World Cup blues may be affecting South African hotels as concern over low occupancy prevails.

Results from the latest edition of Horwath HTL Global Hotel Market Sentiment Survey, shows that hotel operators in all world regions believe that while recovery is on track, they don’t think the worst is over. South Africa’s results reflect this view, with hoteliers disappointed with occupancy growth when compared with previous expectations.

The survey, which is carried out every six months, aims to gauge the driving forces behind industry sentiment. Michele de Witt, director of Horwath HTL in South Africa said, “The survey findings confirm what we have been experiencing on the ground, that conditions continue to be tough and that while indications are that average room rate and total revenues have begun to rebound, owners and operators remain concerned by low occupancy levels.”

In its annual results, City Lodge confirmed that although occupancies during the World Cup were satisfactory considering the late cancellation of a large number of bookings by MATCH, they were not as favourable as originally expected, particularly outside of Gauteng. “Trading after the World Cup final on July 11 has been disappointing amid clear evidence that normal business travel patterns have not yet resumed,” said ceo, Clifford Ross.

However, there is some optimism as the industry considers the best way to deal with the current market conditions. According to Clive Bennett, md of The Red Carnation Hotel Collection, “The key issue now is to ensure one’s business is fully aware of the choices in its competitor set, and really demonstrates and effectively promotes and sells the meaningful point of difference over competitors; that the value one is offering to the client is meaningful and well articulated and ensure the relationships and their trust with the hotel’s delivery is unquestionable and beyond doubt.”

Source: SA Tourism Update

To Review Or Not To Review

It appears that opening up hotel reviewing to the masses has come at a cost. Reality, does not always match people's expectations and you don't have to search too hard to find reviewers who are furious because the television set wasn't quite large enough, or the bacon at breakfast wasn't crisp enough. There is, of course, no accounting for taste, and herein lies the problem.

In the days before the web you had to write a letter, put it in an envelope and go to the post box. Now you can sit down and fire off a rant online. The immediacy of the web means that if you've had a bad day and one of the towels isn't folded properly, you can go online and write a scathing review saying what a bad time you've had. But how often is that balanced by someone saying they had a wonderful time? Critics are concerned that people with an axe to grind can write a savage review and hide behind their online anonymity.

What is the Fur Free Alliance?

The Fur Free Alliance (FFA) is an international coalition of over 35 animal protection organizations working to bring an end to the exploitation and killing of animals for their fur.

This poster came third in the Design Against Fur competition for the Russian region.




Real or Fake?

FEEL: Feel the difference by rolling the hairs between finger and thumb.
GENUINE: Feels smooth and soft, easily rolls between the finger.
FAKE: Feels coarse.

LOOK: Longhaired fur—blow on the hairs so they divide.
GENUINE: Often made up of several layers of thin, almost curly hairs which form a dense under-wool, through which the longer hairs stick out. The base is leather.
FAKE: Simpler in structure, individual hairs are often the same length and even in colour.

PINCH WITH A PIN: Through the base.
GENUINE: The leather resists, pin is hard to push through.
FAKE: Pin easily goes through the base.

BURN TEST: Pull (very carefully) a few hairs from the fur and hold them to a flame.
GENUINE: Singes like a human hair and smells similar.
FAKE: Melts like plastic and smells like burnt plastic. Forms small plastics balls at the ends that feel hard between finger and thumb.

Arty-Pam Shops 'Til She Drops

Arty-Pam just loves Hermanus for its abundance of classy shops. She will browse for hours on end in search of that 'elusive bargain dol'. When she is not shopping, Arty-Pam can be found at Fick's pool touching up her lipstick and cute callosities.

Arty-Pam has a crush on Whalewatcher-Walter and often gives him a wink with those dreamy eyes as he sails nearby.

So, Are You Compliant?

Over half of South Africa’s hospitality establishments do not comply with Department of Labour legislation, placing it on government’s list of 'high risk' and 'problematic' sectors for the 2010/2011 financial year.

Zondeki says that during inspections, the department discovered that employers were not aware of the annual increases in terms of minimum wages and 49 per cent of respondents said they either were not aware of, or could not afford to pay, minimum wages to their staff.

Don Leffler, Director of The School of Business, says the tourism and hospitality sectors are largely made up of small businesses operating in very competitive markets with low margin returns on investments. “Many of these businesses, including one-man travel agents, tour operators, guides, B&Bs, restaurants and pubs, operate under the radar and, in some instances, either have limited knowledge of, or deliberately defy labour legislation requirements,” he says. “It is difficult to monitor and enforce compliance on these small businesses, particularly those operating outside of the main cities.” Leffler says that while he believes the department’s statistics to be accurate, established medium to large businesses will be close to 100% compliant.

Interestingly, the draft National Tourism Sector Strategy identified the importance of making the tourism sector more attractive to job seekers as one of its key focus areas. In an environment where salaries are often below minimum wage, this could be difficult to achieve. Leffler says the retention of quality staff is hampered by generally poor training and development, career progression and salary levels. “Tourism is not perceived as a career of choice and this needs to be addressed so that the best people are attracted to the sector, retained and continually developed to meet changing requirements,” he adds.

The next time you are at sea, just pray that you have an old seasoned skipper at the helm. Mariner-Mike prefers quiet waters and clients with settled tummies.

During his illustrious career, Mariner-Mike has been skipper on infamous vessels such as Miroshca and Lady T.