This Tourism Week – 14 March 2009

(I haven’t been ignoring, you, it’s just that you haven’t been receiving This Tourism Week for a while. Sorry about the break – but I bought an Apple. After more than a month of MacProblems, though, I got rid of the thing, bought a sommer ordinary slap tjips LG laptop and now I’m now trying to pick up the MacPieces. So in the unlikely event that you tried to unsubscribe but you’re still getting my newsletters, please forgive. We are – here he crosses his fingers – almost back on track..)

This week on This Tourism Week:

•    Language Training in Mossel Bay. Are your staff ready for 2010?
•    A present for you: my novel, Belthar’s Garden, in pdf format; and
•    Hiking, Adventure, and Walking – or, what’s new in the BarefootBookshop?

This Week’s This Tourism Week is brought to you by Buffalo Hills – an African Adventure on the Garden Route. Visit them at www.buffalohills.co.za – and watch a video about their new mountain biking trails here.  (They also have walking, game viewing, trail running, horse riding, luxury tented- and lodge-style accommodation, and a wicked Mampoer Distillery. And they welcome kids. If you’re in the Garden Route, you NEED to visit Buffalo Hills).

… and remember to visit my Jobs in Tourism Page.

¡Encantado! Mossel Bay Launches Language Training Centre

Remember the good old days? “Dis die forrriner se probleeem as hy nie Afrikaans kan praat nie” – or this one: “As hulle ons wil kom besoek, kan hull ons taal ‘n bietjie begin leer.”

No really, that’s what people used to say. In the ‘sixties. It actually happened to my auntie’s best friend, a little old English lady from Upmarsh-on-the-Thames, I promise…

OK – maybe. Or maybe not… But the point is, South Africa is going to be hosting the world soon: next year, to be precise (and we’re not just talking football here. Did you know that 1st World Social Security Forum will take place in Cape Town in November 2010?).

So – are you and your staff ready for 2010? Are you ready for the future? Can you speak the 3rd most spoken language in the world? (And no, it’s neither English nor – sacre bleu! mon dieu! – French. It’s Spanish. And there’s a moer of a lot of business to be done with the Spanish speaking world. And I’m backing an Argentina-Germany final. Imagine!).

If not, read this:

The organisers of Mossel Bay’s new Language Training Centre introduced their academy at an open day at The Point Hotel last Thursday, April 9.

In what is thought to be the first project of its kind in the country, the University of Buenos Aires Language Centre (CUI) has teamed up with local company Armiger (who will administer the courses) to train locals – initially in Spanish, but also in Portuguese, Italian and French.

“Depending on which sources you’re reading, Spanish is considered either the second- or third-most spoken language on the planet – after Mandarin and Hindi,” said Louis Harris, Mossel Bay’s Coordinator for 2010, who facilitated the establishment of the Academy in the run up to the FIFA World Cup.

“It’s also definitely one of the top three languages on the Internet – which makes it one of the most important (if not THE most important) of the so-called FIFA-languages, and Mossel Bay is proud to have taken the lead in beginning to train our hospitality, emergency and other personnel to speak, read and write it.

“But Government’s major concern, of course, is the legacy that 2010 will leave behind, and whilst this Academy has been started with the short term view of making South Africa’s guests welcome during the World Cup, this is definitely just a short term-view.

“The long-term vision is that the Academy will prepare South Africans for doing business with more than 400 million Spanish speakers throughout the world – and to give them an exportable skill that will make them sought after in the international work force well into the future.”

Mr. Harris said that the first lecturers from the University of Buenos Aires – Ms. Rosana Brizzi, Ms. Paula Cardoso, Mr. Sergio Pittaluga and Mr. Sebastien Barvie – would arrive in Mossel Bay next week and would begin lecturing on April the 20th.

Courses will take place in the classrooms of the historic Milkwood Primary School (at The Point, Mossel Bay), and student numbers are already climbing rapidly. Rates are very reasonable and employers will be able to reclaim the cost of tuition from their SETAs.

“Everyone who expects to deal with visitors, officials and players during 2010 should enroll for these courses,” said Mr. Harris. “This includes all front-of-house staff as well as emergency personnel, shopkeepers and others.

“Importantly, though, to be able to speak a foreign language is a skill that will serve you well long into the future.”

Registration forms are available on the Armiger web site – www.armiger.biz – or from Mossel Bay Tourism (044-69122 02) or Armiger itself (044 879 0049 and 083 480 8589).

CUI courses will be rolled out to other centres in the very near future. More details at www.armiger.biz

My Present To You: Your Free Copy Of My Novel Belthar’s Garden

After five years of trying to get a publisher to – well, publish my first novel (there are others), I realised that whilst publishers still need writers, writers don’t need publishers (not that they ever really did: both Hemmingway and Shakespeare are said to have self-published. Of course I’m neither a macho man nor the play write supreme – but if it’s good enough for the masters… ).

So I decided – apologies to Richard Branson – ‘Screw It, Let’s Publish It.’

And I did.

For Free.

On the Internet.

It’s yours to download here.

You are free to share, copy, distribute and transmit this book under the following conditions:* (a) Attribution. You must attribute this work to Martin Hatchuel, author (but not in any way that suggests that I endorse you or your use of my work). (b) No Derivative Works. You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. (c) If you reuse or distribute this work, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work. The best way to do this is with a link to this web page: Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 South Africa Licence (d) Any of the above conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder. That would be me. (e) Nothing in the Creative Commons license impairs or restricts the author’s moral rights. (* Adapted from http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/)

Walking through the BarefootBookshop

Thanks Apple: I had to cancel my walk along the coast west of Mossel Bay so that I could attend to my computer MacCrisis. But I consoled myself with three great books about walking (and other adventurous stuff)…

Hiking Trails of South Africa

Willie Olivier’s essential reference work deserves a place on every South African’s shelf. And it certainly ought to be in every tourism professional’s library.

You see, the only way to really see a place is to walk – and South Africa must have some of the best walking in the world. (I’ll never forget the 10 minute telephone conversation I once had with a friend who’d just come back from ten days tramping in New Zealand: “Martin,” he told me, “in ten days walking I only saw ten species of birds.” I’d been sitting on my swing – and in my garden counted more than 20 species while we talked. Which says a lot: both about South Africa and about our conversation).

Walking is a growing activity and in these difficult times, I predict it’s going to grow even more. It’s cheap and you get huge bang for your bucks – and I’d say that on the scale of totally stressed to totally relaxed, an hour’s good (and not necessarily even difficult) walking is equal to a whole weekend away.

And what’s good about this book is that it makes walking accessible. Of course it begins with all the obvious dos and don’ts, and of course there aren’t nearly enough illustrations (but how can their be?), but the meat of the book is in the description of the trails. Mr. Olivier has described over 250 of them, each beginning with a summary of things like length, facilities and activities. And don’t be fooled into thinking that all walks are days-long slogs with a heavy and unpleasant pack on your back: many of the entries describe shorter walks that should appeal to everyone.

The attraction of this book is finding the walks that’ll suit you: I love kicking back and paging through Hiking Trails of South Africa and dreaming about my next adventure…

It’s published by Random House Struik and it’s here.

Great African Adventures

The first question I asked author Jacques Marais when I finally met him (we’d been in e-contact for a while, but never before in the same place at the same time) was, “Did you personally do all those things.”

And immediately the words came out of my mouth, regretted asking it – they showed that I hadn’t even bothered to read the introduction to this amazing dream-builder of a book.

But then if you put the cauliflower and broccoli on the table at the same time as the ice cream and the Bar One sauce and tell the kids to tuck in – who’s gonna eat the veggies? Gimme the sweets! Gimme the sweets!

(No, for the record, Mr. Marais didn’t write all the entries, but that doesn’t matter).

Amazing illustrations, incredible feats, and big, big dreams populate every single page of this book. Kloofing, trail running, canopy tours, catamaran cruising in the islands, snowboarding, rock climbing – everything I’ve ever wanted to do out there’s in here. 20 chapters of ‘em.

But I’m not going to tell you any more about it. Just buy it and enjoy, OK?

It’s published by Random House Struik and its here.

Best Walks of the Drakensberg

OK, lemme come right out and say it: I don’t know the ‘Berg. And THAT’S a terrible admission indeed – but I once went to Injasuthi and I spent a night in a backpacker’s at Sani Top: do they count?

No, actually, they don’t, and reading David Bristow’s ‘Best Walks of the Drakensberg’ (Random House Struik) made me realise how much they don’t.

Walking – I’ll say it again – is the best way to get to know a place, and if you’re going to walk in the Berg, this book is probably the place to start. It begins with a quotation from a mountaineer called Frank Smythe (“Go out alone on the hills and listen. You will hear much… Alone amidst nature, a man leanrs to be one with all and all with one.”)… and it gets better from there.

Amongst other things, the ‘Berg contains a vast collection of irreplaceable rock art, and the first chapter I read was the one on this subject. It set the tone for the rest – here is a writer who cares passionately about his work and, more, about the area he’s writing about.

After the introductory pages, the book reveals the ‘Berg area by area, with, of course, plenty of information about each walk and trail. But here I have a criticism – I get the feeling that you’re kind of expected to know the names of the places you’re going to be walking into. But maybe this is more a fault of the descriptions – or, more likely, my reading of them.

Still, I think when I do finally pack my tent and beetle up to the ‘Berg, I’ll be packing ‘Best Walks,’ too,

This is a revision of a book first published in 1988. Buy it here.

Now – have a GREAT tourism week!