New Zimbabwean camp opens

Kavinga Safari Camp, situated on a cliff in the southern sector of Mana Pools National Park, Zimbabwe, opened in May.

The camp comprises five spacious double or twin-bedded, en-suite tented units with verandas built on raised platforms, offering a view of the rising sun over the mountains.  The central living area has an upstairs wooden deck with views over the waterhole and the Ruckomechi riverbed.

A stepped pathway leads visitors down to the wildlife observation hide, which is built into the ground to provide close-up water-level views.

Kavinga Safari Camp also has guides on hand to offer a wilderness experience to wildlife enthusiasts, walkers, hikers and photographers wanting to explore the Mana Pools Park and World Heritage Site..

New culinary route opens on Cape West Coast

West Coast Way Foodie Route, which showcases the diverse flavours to be found in this area, launched last week.

The route is a self-drive circular route with 10 stops – the West Coast National Park with Geelbek Restaurant; Langebaan; Saldanha Bay; Jacobsbaai; Paternoster and Cape Columbine; St Helena and Shelley Point; Velddrif; the West Coast Fossil Park; Hopefield; and the Thali Thali Game Lodge.

“The West Coast Way Foodie Route showcases the relationship between passion, innovation and food,” said Founder, Carmen Lerm.  

“It must be mentioned that this new route is located within an area of vast natural and cultural beauty,” added James Vos, South African Shadow Minister of Tourism.

The route launch began at Thali Thali Game Lodge with a traditional West Coast breakfast, followed by the official ribbon cutting ceremony at Herons Rest. Guests were then taken to Protea Hotel Saldanha Bay for oysters with a final stop at Saldanha Bay Cultural Village and Museum, showcasing the historic fishing houses of Hoedjieskop in Saldanha.

Other West Coast Way routes include the West Coast Way Scenic Route, the West Coast Way Berg Route and the West Coast Way Cultural Route.

“Tour operators can use these routes as part of their itinerary and easily find what they need to put bespoke and new packages together,” says Lerm.

Drought forces Kruger to cull animals

The Kruger National Park has culled 59 of its hippos, said William Mabasa, Acting Head of Communications, SANParks, a result of the drought, which has left no food for the animals.

At the moment the meat is being sold to staff, but Mabasa says that ultimately they want to supply the meat to some NGOs around the park.

“Our abattoir’s registration process has not been complete, so we can’t take that meat out at the moment.”

Mabasa adds that the park will also look to cull buffaloes but at the moment there are no plans to cull any other animals.

The best lodges to see the wildebeest migration

The annual migration in East Africa is a memorable safari experience and a dream for many overseas visitors. Kim Emmanuel looks at some of the best places to stay when viewing the migration.

1.Sanctuary Serengeti Migration Camp
Robert Dixon, Senior Marketing & Digital Manager of Sanctuary Retreats, recommends the three of the group’s camps to best enjoy the wildebeest migration. “Rain is what motivates the migration and rules where the herds will be throughout the year,” said Dixon, adding that the best time to visit is July to October.
Sanctuary Serengeti Migration Camp in Tanzania is a seasonal camp that is located in the Western Serengeti from April – July, in the Northern Serengeti from August – November and in the Southern Serengeti from December – March each year.
This camp will move between three different locations, literally following the migration as it travels across the Serengeti, offering guests year round access to this incredible spectacle.
The camp offers 10 luxury safari tents each with their own en-suite bathrooms, indoor bucket shower and personal tent attendant.

2.Serengeti Serena safari Lodge

Serengeti Serena safari Lodge is located in the Serengeti National Park, 335 kilometres from Arusha, Tanzania where guests can enjoy a ringside seat of the annual migration of the wildebeest.
The lodge comprises 66 rooms of which one is a suite, two are handicap rooms, 26 twin rooms, 21 double rooms and 16 triple rooms (three pairs connecting rooms).
The lodge is accessible via a one hour flight from Arusha Airport to Seronera Air strip, followed by a transfer to the lodge 27 kilometres away.
Apart from witnessing the wildebeest migration, guests can enjoy game drives, hot air balloon safaris, walking safaris, nature walks, the swimming pool, acrobatic shows, cultural dances, video shows, a local guitarist, and board games.

3.Governors’ Camp

Governors’ Camp in Kenya’s Masai Mara is one of the best places to experience the migration.
"The camp presents an unmatched migration experience, more especially due to its ideal location and perfectly executed game drives," says Dave Bennett, Chief Sales Officer at Wilderness Safaris.
The camp is ideally located just north of several crossing points and adjacent to the renowned Paradise Plains where the BBC has filmed much of their migration footage.
The Governors’ Camp Collection comprises of seven luxury safari camps and lodges. The group also operate two aircraft, which are used to fly clients to and between camps.


4.Mara Serena Safari Lodge

Mara Serena Safari Lodge is located in the centre of the famous ‘Mara Triangle' of Masai Mara National Reserve, Kenya.
The lodge provides views over the savannah and down to the hippo-filled Mara River, where guests can view the annual migration.
The lodge comprises 74 rooms (including five family rooms and one suite, all of which are non-smoking), a central dining room, internal and external bar, swimming pool and sundeck, Maisha Safari Spa and Gym, and gift shop and business centre. Other facilities include satellite television, WiFi, 24-hour medical services, a conference centre and events facilities.
Transfers to the lodge by road from Nairobi are approximately five hours in duration, while Mara Serena Airstrip is two kilometres from the Masai Mara Serena Safari Lodge.

5.Sanctuary Kusini

Sanctuary Kusini is the only permanent camp in the remote southern part of the Serengeti, Tanzania, and is ideal for seeing cheetah and wildebeest that congregate on the grassy plains in the calving season from mid-December to March.
Sanctuary Kusini comprises 12 tents each with its own personal attendant, mosquito netting, hairdryers and in-room safe.
The camp's communal areas include a dining area, lounge and library, as well as a campfire.

6.Sanctuary Olonana

Sanctuary Olonana is a tented safari camp on a private stretch of the Mara River in Kenya's Masai Mara.
During the annual wildebeest migration, the action happens on the camp's doorstep.
The camp comprises 14 tents with en-suite bathrooms and offers game drives, cultural visits, bush dinners, sundowners, balloon flights and scenic flights.
In Nairobi, scheduled flights depart from Wilson Airport (approximately 45 minutes) to the Mara.

7.Porini Lion Camp

Porini Lion Camp in the Olare Motorogi Conservancy, Kenya, is the ideal base for the main Serengeti-Mara migration. The camp has some of the biggest big cat densities in Africa and this provides a lot of big cat action when the thousands of wildebeest are around.
Night game drives during migration time is when the lions, leopards, and hyenas are most active and offers opportunities to watch a hunt or a pride noisily feasting on a wildebeest. The camp is also situated in easy reach of some of the key Mara River crossing points for those that may be interested in seeing them.

8.&Beyond Grumeti Serengeti Tented Camp

Grumeti Serengeti Tented Camp is a luxury lodge located in the Western Serengeti, Tanzania, in the path of the Great Migration and its river crossings.
The lodge comprises 10 tented safari suites with overhead fans, outdoor showers, swimming pool, and Safari Shop. It can accommodate 20 guests.
Apart from the wildebeest migration, guests can also witness the topi, a species of antelope, migration from the lodge.

9.Porini Mara Camp.

Porini Mara Camp in the Ol Kinyei Conservancy, the first conservancy in the Mara, Kenya, set up as an exclusive area for wildlife and with a room density not exceeding 1 tent to 700 acres, is the ideal place for the calving of the Loita migration. This occurs at the same time as the calving in Ndutu, Serengeti and offers great photography opportunities and memories of new life and at times death by the over 30 lions found in Ol Kinyei.

10.Sayari Camp.

Sayari Camp is located in the far north of the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania.
It comprises 15 tents that are split between two wings, with six tents in the smaller camp, to the north of the swimming pool, and nine in the bigger camp on the south side. Each wing has its own lounge and dining area, and a central swimming pool linking the two.

Each tent has its own en-suite bathrooms, with spacious showers and egg-shaped baths large enough for two, and offers views of the Serengeti plains.

Bringing brain science to winemaking: SA's world-first 'neurowine'

4 May 2016

A South African team of marketers and neuroscientists have announced the launch of the world's first neurowine, a wine developed by applying techniques usually used in neuroscience to winemaking.
Pieter Walser, a Cape winemaker from the Blankbottle label, partnered with local "neuro-marketing" consultancy Neural Sense to test 21 white and 20 red wine varietals from vineyards across the country.
Walser's emotional and cognitive responses to each taste were assessed, using neuroscience and biometric technologies. The test results were then used to create a perfect blend, a neurowine. It is available as both a red and a white wine.

South Africa is the eighth-largest wine producer in the world. Local wines are increasingly popular overseas, with exports doubling from 2005 to 2015.

The neurowine process
"One of the pieces of technology we used – known as electroencephalography or EEG – is a device which fits around the head and picks up the electrical activity on the surface of one's scalp," said Dr David Rosenstein of Neural Sense.

"It looks at how the brain is functioning and the associated brain waves, which in turn tells us various things about brain activity."
The team of scientists built a model of Walser's brain activity and, coupled with the biometric data, were able to reveal his unconscious responses to the wine-tasting experience.

"This model enabled us to determine what were the best performing aspects of the various varietals he was tasting and identify the top wine varietals that his unconscious appealed to, together with his subjective reporting, to form the neurowine blend," Rosenstein said.

The power of the subconscious
Walser said his preconceptions of what wine should taste like can sometimes get in the way of formulating a blended wine.

"The day I pick them, I taste the grapes and I decide more or less what the wine's going to be like, but it then goes through different phases during the winemaking process so by the time I need to bottle, I can become confused," he said.

The neuroscience method has helped him make his decision. "This neuro-marketing approach has allowed my subconscious, and not my conscious, to do the talking."
The job of a neuroscientist and neuro-marketer is to understand how people experience things, according to 
Neural Sense's Mark Drummond.

"Using neuro-marketing techniques and technologies we are able to explore the subconscious and the underlying emotional drivers that drive decision making," he said.
"This allows us to see into the hearts and minds of consumers, or winemakers in this case, giving us new insight into their experiences which can then be optimised."

Taste it yourself
Walser started his label Blankbottle because he was "fed up of tasting wines with fancy labels and wanted to create a wine brand that you could judge only on quality, not looks."

He said his wines come from an array of vineyards, allowing him to create many different wine styles.
Neurowine will be available at Woolworths

Botswana: New look for Botswana hotel

The Masa Square Hotel in Gaborone, Botswana, has reopened following extensive renovations as well as a rebrand. The hotel was officially launched by Minister of Environment, Wildlife and Tourism, Tshekedi Khama last week.

Formerly the Lansmore Masa Square hotel, the property has opened under new ownership and management. 

The marketing and management contract was awarded to aha last year.Developments at the hotel include a fully renovated foyer and reception, the introduction of Don Carlos restaurant, and Carlitos café, both of which boast new menu options. The hotel’s terrace area has also been fully renovated – offering a café-style wooden deck and covered seating spilling out on to the Masa piazza.




Aha has also launched 30 new Masa Suites, which are fully furnished modern short-stay suites designed for comfort and convenience for business or leisure travellers opting for a self-catering-style executive stay.

Masa Square Hotel GM, Greg Soutter, commented: “We’re incredibly excited by the big changes one now finds at Masa Square Hotel, coupled with the reputed charm and excellence that guests and patrons have always come to know from Masa. There’s truly a well-diversified offering for everyone, and this is simply yet another step on our journey towards being a hospitality brand that rivals all others.”

“Of the many incredible addresses under our careful and respectful management, Masa is standout destination. Not only for its bespoke offering but its enviable location too,” said Neil Bald, MD of aha Hotels & Lodges.

The property is in the heart of Gaborone’s New CBD and offers 152 luxury rooms spread over seven floors, a restaurant and café, rooftop infinity swimming pool and event space, including conference facilities accommodating up to 200 people. Aha also manages Chobe Marina Lodge.