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This Tourism Week 1 December 2009
In this week’s article, the third in our four-part series on liquor licensing, Liquorwise - Nationwide Liquor Licensing Specialists - places the spotlight on your risk of liability from liquor-related incidents on your premises.
See below: “The Risk Of Liability From Liquor-Related Incidents To Businesses In The Hospitality Industry.”
2010: Mossel Bay’s Legacy
View this article on line - and post comments about it for all to see - here.
191 days left to kick-off and what have we got to show for it? In Mossel Bay, they’ve got two long-term legacy projects: a brand new FIFA-standard soccer pitch - and a new marketing strategy that could well redefine the way local tourism bureaux market themselves internationally.
I’ve been privileged to be part of the creation of the latter, and I’d like to tell you a bit about it.
For reasons too numerous to explain, it became obvious, soon after we began bidding for a base camp for the 2010 FIFA World Cup (under the leadership of Louis Harris), that our target market was going to be in Spanish-speaking South America (and this proved correct when Mossel Bay signed the Western Cape’s first confirmed base camp with the Paraguayan Soccer Federation).
But we were spending such a large part of our limited budget on marketing ourselves in that part of the world that we wanted to make sure the money wasn’t going to waste, so to speak - because we recognised from the beginning that bidding for a base camp was a once-off project, but tourism is a long-term affair.
And so we came up with Mossel Bay’s South-South Strategy.
This strategy seeks to engender two-way trade in the areas of the four pillars on which it rests - tourism, commerce, social welfare (including sports) and scientific enquiry.
And this is what makes Mossel Bay’s South-South Strategy unique: instead of just selling Mossel Bay to South America, it’s also about selling South America to Mossel Bay - and, with everyone and every business guru sprouting forth about ‘win-win situations,’ I wonder that no one in destination marketing has yet seen the value in this kind of two-way stuff. Because it’s obvious: tourism is about creating friendships between people, and friendships are two-way streets, and not just one-way highways (not just “I’ll be nice to you if you buy from me and make me rich” - which is kind of what destination marketing has always been, I think).
So Mossel Bay wants to get its people to see South America as much as it wants South Americans to see Mossel Bay - whether as tourists, as businesspeople, as sports people or as scientists. And to make things easy, it’s created a Spanish language website - www.mosselbay2010.com.ar - that almost completely mirrors its English site - www.visitmosselbay.co.za - and it’s started training locals in the language the better to be able to host the South Americans when they get here (this is being done by a company called Armiger (Pty) Ltd on behalf of the University of Buenos Aires). A total of between 350 and 400 people living in Mossel Bay will be speaking Spanish come the World Cup - including the gaardjies on the minibus taxis, safety and security personnel, hospitality staff, and (of course) the entire team at the Mossel Bay Tourism office. And they’re not going to forget their newly-acquired skills when the soccer fans go home, either. Especially if the South Americans keep coming.
And, I believe, come they will - especially as Mossel Bay has begun attending various workshops as well as the FIT show in Buenos Aires (FIT is the International Tourism Trade Fair of Latin America - Feria Internacional de Turismo de America Latina).
The South-South Strategy includes plans for capacity-building projects in the areas of social welfare and sports training, and may even see the establishment of more permanent training institutions. And it could grow, too, to encompass much larger portions of the Western and - who knows? - even the Eastern Cape Province and the rest of South Africa.
It’s that kind of animal, now that it’s got a life of its own.
And, I’m proud to say, as far as destination marketing is concerned, it’s a new species of animal altogether.
The Risk Of Liability From Liquor-Related Incidents To Businesses In The Hospitality Industry
What to do if one of your guests enjoys your hospitality a little too much? So much so that, in a state of mild or severe intoxication he or she causes material damage to your property and / or that of other guests? And what if or she causes bodily damage to you and / or your guests?
Because this is usually more of an insurance question than a liquor licensing issue, Liquorwise asked a number of well-known insurance companies for answers to these questions. This is what we found:
The owner of insured and licensed premises will be covered for all material damage caused on the premises - whether the damage is to your own property or that of your guests - but the owner will not be covered for bodily damage caused to him- or herself or to other guests. And the owner may also not be held liable if a guest suffers damage caused by another guest - although the person who suffers the damage is entitled to sue the person who caused the damage.
To take an example from real life: an intoxicated woman danced on a bar stool and fell through a glass window, suffering facial injuries. Her claim for bodily injuries was refused, although the material damage (- to the window) was covered by the insurance policy.
So - what can (and should) the owner or manager do?
The Liquor Act (Liquorwise’ summary) determines that “the holder of a license or his or her agent or employee may (1) refuse to admit any person or refuse to sell liquor to any person; (2) request any person to leave the premises or that of the premises; or (3) remove any person or request any police officer to remove any person who is drunk, violent or disorderly or whose presence on the licensed premises may subject the holder of the license to prosecution under this Act”.
License holders should, therefore, be aware of their rights and obligations in terms of the Liquor Act.
For more information on the liability of a license holder, his or her manager, and their employees and families, contact Liquorwise.
Consult Liquorwise – Nationwide Liquor Licensing Specialists With All The Answers To Your Liquor License Questions – Focusing on the hospitality industry – Adding value to your business.
And in the meantime... have a GREAT tourism week!
This Tourism Week 10 November 2009
Brought to you by Buffalo Hills - now offering diner, bed and breakfast at just R950.00 pppn (a price that includes guided game drive, game walk, Nyati jjj Mampoer Distillery Tour and Mampoer tasting, and agent’s commission).
Price Gouging: Your Money Or Your Future?
Correct me if I’m wrong, but this is the way you decide on your room rate: you take your direct costs (laundry, amenities, meals), add the cost of buying your expensive property to the cost of developing your rooms and the cost of borrowings, multiply by the number of rooms you have, and by the expected life of the business, and divide by the number of bed nights you expect to sell during that time, add a fair profit for yourself (and an unfair profit for the tax man) - and viola! that’s your base rate.
Then all you need to do is put your prices up or down according to the basics of yield management, and if your town or your region are empty, you charge less, and if they’re full, you charge more.
Or something like that.
So how does the idea of price gouging come about? Is there any real difference between yield management and price gouging? And how does a homeowner, who’s putting his place up for rent for one month during a big event (the World Cup, for instance?) determine his rates?
And, of course, whenever I think about something these days, the first thing I do is Google it.
My search began with a story from Bnet about two Texan hotels who were accused of price gouging for doubling their rates during Hurricane Ike, which forced residents of coastal areas to flee inland.
Not a great example - because that’s not price gouging; it’s inhuman (although the writer did say: “If the government is going to require reasonably-priced hotels during a natural disaster, why not give them a financial incentive rather than expecting them to take it on the chin for the good of the community?” And how American is that? I remember that, during the floods of ’96, many of the guest houses and hotels in Wilderness in the Garden Route took caravanners and campers in for free).
Then I went to the BBC - my favourite news feed - and found this article: SA World Cup rail project delayed, which gave me a REAL example of price gouging - contractors asking for an extra $180 million (dollars mind you, not Rands) to have the Gautrain ready in time for kick-off. If they didn’t get it, they said, the train would only start running two weeks into the event (to which our good Government promptly told them where to get off).
But that article also carried this warning: “In another development, a World Cup organiser has hit out at spiralling accommodation prices for the event.
“Organising committee boss Danny Jordaan said inflated prices could damage South Africa's prospects of enticing tourists back after the tournament.
“Mr Jordaan told Reuters news agency he was concerned to hear that some owners of hotels and private homes have inflated prices by up to six times during the past few months.”
We should not, he said “look at the World Cup as a once-off, but see tourism over a period of time creating a stable and predictable basis. Otherwise you will get a huge influx of tourists into the country and they won't return. Unfortunately this is one of the things that has emerged around major events.” (And how South African is that?)
And then I found this very sober and considered article by Donald Holacek of the Michigan State University: Pricing Tourism Products & Services.
But Mr. Holacek ends with these words: “One point remains to be made. Regardless of how much you read about pricing, both in theory and in practice, and how much research you undertake to support your decisions, it is necessary to monitor the results of your pricing decisions. Only through monitoring can you determine whether your pricing decisions are yielding the anticipated results. It is far better to adjust your strategy than it is to stick with a bad decision. Even good business people occasionally make bad decisions because of faulty information or incorrect analysis. The only way to determine what price to charge is to experiment.”
... And that lead me back to my own conviction that pricing in tourism is about nothing more than perceptions - because if we create the perception that something is expensive, it will be. And there’s nothing wrong with that because there will always be those who want expensive things, just as much as there will always be those who want the cheapies.
So if South Africa wants to project itself as an expensive destination, that’s OK - but the perceptions that it generates must underpin that positioning. And this means we need to protect our visitors and provide them with the top-drawer value-for-money they deserve from an expensive destination.
My fear though, is that, with our crime, poverty and appalling service delivery, we can’t.
And THAT’S what really opens us up to being accused of price gouging.
Buffalo Hills - An African Adventure On the Garden Route
Here’s a special that every tour operator will want to know about.
Besides excellent value for money, Buffalo Hills, near Plettenberg Bay, offers a fantastic experience of South African bush hospitality combined with a unique tour of the Reserve’s very own Nyati jjj Mampoer Distillery for just R950.00 pp (a price that also includes guided game drive, game walk, diner, bed and breakfast, and agent’s commission).
The Reserve has hundreds of plains animals but none of the dangerous ones - so your guests will also be free to enjoy un-guided trail running and mountain biking on established routes (although bikes are not provided - but, given sufficient notice, hire can be arranged through an outside contractor). Guided mountain bike tours (with Mountain Biking Africa http://www.mountainbikingafrica.co.za/), overnight luxury hiking trails and day visitor facilities are also available.
And the birding, of course, is superb - with dozens of forest, grassland, and open woodland species.
Importantly, kids are genuinely welcome at Buffalo Hills, which owners Tony and Maria Kinahan set up “so that future generations - and especially our grandchildren and their grandchildren - will know something about the magnificence of the African bush.”
See my video interview with cooked Tony Cook and raw Jacques Marais here - or contact Tony Kinahan directly for more information on telephone +27(0)44 535 9739 or e-mail buffalohills@mweb.co.za.
Now go away on holiday - it’s in the economy’s best interest.
And in the meantime... have a GREAT tourism week!
Martin Hatchuel
BarefootWriter
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