Hello

Amazon.com has nothing to do with the Amazon.  Similarly, CapeInfo now has more content covering the whole of South Africa than it has for the Western Cape.

Many of you are getting ready for your summer holidays but some are preparing for your busiest time of year.  Wherever you may be and whatever you may be doing, we wish you and your loved ones a safe, blessed and happy festive season.  And may 2011 exceed all your expectations.

If you have any comments on this newsletter, we'd love to hear them - click here to add yours.

INTERVIEWS
It's the year Cape Town Tourism grew up
It's been a challenging year for Cape Town Tourism and, with the World Cup over, CEO Mariette du Toit-Helmbold looks at their successes as well as the areas where they didn't fare as well and need to do better.

It's a frank and very honest interview which will inform all product owners as well as tourism offices elsewhere in South Africa.

Their biggest success is in social media marketing -- I ♥ Cape Town on Facebook has attracted over 160,000 fans, which compares to the 79,000 fans of the national South African Facebook page, and 30,000 fans for Sydney, Australia.

Click here to read the interview.

If there are other provincial, city or town tourism offices who are keen to share their acheivements and challenges in an interview, please This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

INTERVIEWS
Helping B&B's find guests and guests select B&B's
nightsbridge is a system that provides realtime availability & online bookings - for all accommodation types.  But that's only part of it - it also gets accommodation establishments more visible than they could ever be on their own.

If Sir Richard Branson attributes his success to his parents teaching him to be "useful", Theresa & Neil Emerick's young company does just that.

Rather than just another "good idea", they both have backgrounds that ideally suit them to challenges.  And they're among CapeInfo's favourite people - they work hard at improving their product.

They add marketing channels on a regular basis and the latest link with Travelport Leisure (live on December 1) allows 6,000 travel agents to book directly with nightsbridge customers.

In this interview, Theresa explains the typical booking pattern (which echoes CapeInfo's experience and is contrary to what most people expect) and outlines what's needed for success with online bookings.

Click here to read the interview.

BLOGS

ONE OF THE MOST LOVED AND RESPECTED PEOPLE in tourism has just started blogging – on CapeInfo.  Like many others, I’ve been a fan of Rose Willis for a long time.  We’ve read Rose’s Roundup each month and, together with her, grew to understand what a special place the Karoo is.  The Karoo, whatever bureaucrats might say, is actually an area that covers four provinces.

On the occasion of Rose’s Roundup number 100, we interviewed her to discover how someone as competent, professional and dedicated came to be in Beaufort West.

Rose worked in PR in Johannesburg.  After a particularly busy time putting a client on the venture capital market they decided to "drive down the road, find a house they liked and move there." They found the house of their dreams in Beaufort West. (“Of all places!” many will say.)

They packed up in Johannesburg and moved to the Karoo.  Rose got a job as regional tourism co-ordinator and the rest is history as they say.  Any tourism office is only as good as the depth of its knowledge, so Rose embarked on a thorough study of the Karoo which she shared with anyone who was interested.

Then, with Rose’s Roundup No 114 in mid-2003 came the news:
“I have decided to leave Beaufort West at the end of September and move to Bloemfontein.
Deciding to leave the Karoo has been difficult.  I dearly love the Karoo, have devoted 13 years of my life to researching it and have built up an enormous library on the area during that time.  However, I feel I will be more settled with my family in Bloemfontein.  Since Wally's death I have become trapped by a lovely home and two delightful dogs.  Back in the bosom of my family I hope to be happier and more free to continue my historic research activities and my involvement in tourism, in some way.

It is early yet, but I would like to say how very much I have enjoyed doing Round up and getting to know so very many of the readers.  It gives me a special pleasure each time I welcome a new reader to the list and am able to share some treasure of information with them.”

Her first blog post in Karoo Rose is titled “Back in the saddle”.  Go and read it and be enthralled.  And there’s much more to come.

We're also delighted to welcome Martin Hatchuel's This Tourism Week onto CapeInfo's blogs.  He's probably the only specialist tourism writer in the country who’s come to writing from a background in the tourism industry.

“I’ve been a tour guide, I’ve owned an attraction (the Kingfisher Ferry, which operated boat-based and walking bird tours in the then Wilderness National Park) , I’ve helped to build and run half a dozen other tourism businesses, and I now make my living advertising tourism businesses – and after thirty years, I kinda know the industry.”  Oh, and he's a maverick!

And if the CapeInfo blog, A Spaniard in the Works, has been stirring up a storm, we must point out that we never generate controversy for controversy's sake... or readership figures.

The reason for Limpopo's road carnage? is about the lack of effective traffic policing in Limpopo and the futility of calling the Presidential Hotline to complain.

The bane of Cape Town's hospitality industry is a very sad story and was carefully vetted and widely canvassed before publication.  Can a leopard change it spots?  We hope so.

If you're keen to start blogging, and think that you can inform, inspire and entertain readers, getting started is very easy.  Click here to read more.

NEWSLETTERS

CapeInfo's new free events and special offers newsletter. It draws on content in our What's on section and emails it to you each week.  And if you want to add events - for anywhere in SA - that's free too.

You can see an example by clicking here and you subscribe here.

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