Saturday 9 May dawned bright and sunny in Durban as we headed off to the Durban Exhibition Centre for Indaba 2015. The team representing Cape Whale coast this year was Joanne Kunz (acting marketing manager), Glenda Kitley (representing the four bureaux), Eric Davalala (the whale crier) and Adinda Jantjies (municipal tourism official). Mr Solomzi Madikane, director LED and Tourism also attended. Cape Whale Coast had a stand on the Wesgro stand in DEC hall 1. Other regions on the stand included Garden Route & Klein Karoo, The Republic of Swellendam, Stellenbosch 360 and Cape West Coast  as well as West Coast Peninsula Tourism. There were also a number of products eg Die Herberg Hotel and Grande Roche hotel.  I  made  good  use  of  the Indaba Matchmaking System this year and had a number of appointments scheduled. There was a great interest from Chinese and Indian tour operators this year. The Cape Whale Coast area is (on the whole) an unknown area for them. With the help of the Cape Whale Coast  DVD  and photos on my tablet I was able to bring the area to them and show them all that we have to offer as a destination. Brochures and contact details (of all of us) were handed to them. Most of them asked for Itineraries. This will be something that we will be setting up asap and sending to all those who requested such. I have already sent follow up emails to those that we met with and the Cape Whale Coast office will be setting up the database from the business cards we received. I have also emailed product owners (eg whale watching) with specific requests received. One of the Indian tour operators, Rohini Christie, was absolutely enthralled with the region and was fascinated by the Whale Crier.

Along  with  Wesgro  we did two networking and tasting functions one each on the Saturday and Sunday evening. Our product owners were most generous and donated - Kleinrivier Cheese,  Birkenhead Beer, Gaboli Chocolates and Fynbos Liqueurs. These proved to be very popular and we have an invitation to come to the Strawberry festival in Jamestown later  this  year  with  “our”  strawberry liqueur and other products.  Raka, Boschrivier, Creation and Hornbill  also sponsored wine and this was served along with the Wesgro platters.

This year in what they called the Tech Zone there were a number of interesting talks, workshops and  presentations. I managed to attend an interesting one on Social media and Joanne and Adinda also attended a number of these.

Insights  learned  will be shared. An Indaba Newspaper is published daily and we were invited to send articles for this of new and exciting happenings. All the managers submitted various articles. The one that got published was - “World class seabird sanctuary for Gansbaai”. As always we also walked around and visited other stands and representatives and delegates. There were a number of other Cape Whale Coast  products present  at  Indaba - Hermanus  on  Tour   consisted of: SA Forest Adventures, White Shark Projects, Southern Right Charters, The Potting Shed, Jaydee Media, The  Windsor  Hotel  and  Oceans 11.  The  Dyer  Island  Conservation Trust consisting of Marine Dynamics and Dyer Island Cruises joined with Fair Trade in Tourism and Grootbos also had a stand. There have been conflicting reports in the press and on social media. There were less stands and less delegates than in previous years - but I am more than happy with the contacts we made and I am certain that if the follow up is done correctly we will see an increase in the number of tour operators bringing tours through the area. On a lighter note - there are of course many competitions to be entered and the one we all entered was one on the Northern Cape stand. Amongst the prizes that could be won was a fabulous weekend away and then 2 diamonds. One had to be present at the draw to win and so we duly set off after our Sunday evening tasting on the Wesgro stand and listed to all the speeches by the Northern Cape premier and others; There must have been a thousand business cards in the vase. After an hour the draw was complete and not one of us won anything! 

Glenda Kitley: Gansbaai Manager Tourism

Representing Cape Whale Coast Bureaux

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