This Tourism Week Number 19 Sunday, 19 January, 2003. Knysna.
This Tourism Week Number 19 Sunday, 19 January, 2003. Knysna.
Tripping Over The Tipping Minefield
We’ve looked at tipping before in this column, and we’re going there again – because I had more than my fair share of restaurants over the holiday season and once again found myself being asked, urged and bullied into the old pay-as-you-go (or should that be pay-as-you leave?) routine.
And before we begin let me state that I’m not against the idea and practice of tipping, but that I don’t think it really works because good service comes from a combination of training, experience and reward – and not just from the nebulous promise of ‘a tip if you behave.’ Nor do I think that tipping is necessarily a fair labour practice, because it gives employers an excuse to get people to work for a very little amount of money. And the waiter isn’t the only lowly-paid person in the loop: although, to be fair, some restaurants do have tip-sharing – which means that the waiter takes the lion’s share (for carrying the food to the table) while the poor kitchen staff, who’ve prepared and cooked the stuff, get the leftovers, so to speak.
In every other industry, the cost of labour is included in the cost of products and service – what’s so different about the restaurant industry?
But, OK, I’ll live with the system for want of a better one. And I’ll even endorse those neat little gratuity slips they clip to your bill at Harry B’s (a fine little restaurant here in Knysna. It’s in the Main Street, next to Knysna Tourism). This slip is a low key way of reminding patrons that tips are accepted. It’s about twice the size of a business card and looks like this:
| Your bill | R x x x (amount filled in by the waiter) |
| Gratuity | R – – – (left blank for the patron to complete) |
| Total | R – – – (left blank for the patron to complete) |
What I cannot abide, though, is the ‘compulsory 10% service charge.’
I know some restaurateurs will bleat that “if you don’t charge for service the waiters and the kitchen staff have to work their legs off and in the end they’re lucky if they get a 50c tip.”
Well, sirs, why don’t you pay them? Pay them according to what they’re worth and the numbers of hours they work? Because all I – and, I daresay, your other guests – want to know when I part with my hard-earned money, is how much of it I need to hand over. As to how you divvy it up once its yours – I couldn’t care two shakes of a chafing dish.
I was recently taken – by different parties – to the same restaurant on two consecutive days. And this is a restaurant that has recently begun to add the compulsory 10% ‘service charge’ to its bills. Which is a travesty, because the service – which I have never rated particularly highly – was appalling on the first day and non-existent on the second (but I was there as a guest, so I couldn’t complain. And it is true that the standard of the food has always been excellent).
It was, for me, a perfect example of how not to treat people: on the second occasion we were, once our breakfast had arrived, left entirely to our own devices. Our many pleas to the establishment’s many surly waitresses falling on deaf ears, one of our number went – herself – to the serving counter to collect napkins, cutlery, salt and pepper, butter and other sundry, unimportant items.
So the added insult of demanding additional payment for ‘service’ left a bitter taste.
Now here’s the rub: I’ll go back, because I like the place and I like the owners and so I’m tempted to try at least to talk to them about what went wrong.
But both of those out-of-town parties felt ripped off, and both said that they won’t be eating there again.
Makes you think, doesn’t it?
JOINT MARKETING STRATEGY FOR THE WESTERN CAPE
I’ve had a number of impassioned replies to last week’s article about the “Tourism Marketing Strategy And Institutional Proposals For The Western Cape – Cape Town And Regions – November 2002.”
A very few of those readers who’ve written to me about it disagree with my interpretation of the document (and those who do disagree with me were involved with its creation). But I think that we all agree that this strategy could affect everyone in the tourism industry in the Western Cape – and, when the Cape Combo finally becomes a marketing reality, I think it may even affect the Northern and Eastern Cape Provinces.
And so I urge all my Western Cape-based readers to please study the document and to submit their comments to Dr. Mike Fabricius, CEO of the Western Cape Tourism Board (mike@capetourism.org) and to Dr. Laurine Platzky in the Provincial Administration (Lplatzky@pawc.wcape.gov.za).
The document is available as a download off the Joint Marketing Initiative’s web site – http://www.jmi.co.za/ (and please remember that your comments must be in by 31 January 2003).
I believe that we cannot allow this strategy to go ahead in its present form – and if you want to know all of my reasons for saying so, you can request the complete text of my submission from reefgod@mweb.co.za.
But I also think that the plan has its merits and that it could, with a bit of work, be an effective blueprint for our international marketing.
Go and read it and make your comments. Our future might depend on it.
And in the meantime…
“The very first law in advertising is to avoid the concrete promise and cultivate the delightfully vague” – Bill Cosby, American comedian, actor and author.
… Have a Great Tourism Week!
MARTIN HATCHUEL – BarefootWriter
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