Socceroos fans & World Cup Price Hikes

With less than a 100 days to go this Article online in Melbourne's Herald Sun really stung. heraldsun.com.au Aussies Stung by Football World Cup Price Hikes here is the link.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/travel/news/aussies-stung-by-football-world-cup-price-hikes/story-fn32891l-1225843664435

I can understand the anger so I wrote the response below.It's a tough call to choose what to market to soccer fans & South Africa can be a tricky destination for many operators. So I tried to be nice but in essence we thought camping in Autumn was a youth product and what about rain, security & showers etc. A weekend at Meridith or the Falls Festival with a bit of rain is enough and you are only a days drive max from a shower, a sleep & a big feed at home. The other issue was Jo'burgs reputation was too scary for us even though it seemed like a cool place Aussies South Africans said otherwise. Anyway this is how it went.

A Travel Company Perspective: At SportsnetHolidays.com we are also an official participating tour operator for the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa selling tours with Tickets & Hotel Packages. We have sold out one tour & are doing well in a second tour. We took 2 years to plan our World Cup packages & after visiting South Africa in Autumn chose against camping. We also believe Australians who have gone all the way to Africa should see Vic Falls, go to Kruger & Climb Table mountain. We figured it was better to pay & organise this before you left, but this made our offer more expensive. All our packages are hotel only as a week in tents if it rains with no place to leave your passport, tickets, ipods etc can be along time. Sportsnet focused on offering a range of African tours for fans that have gone all the way to South Africa & to back that up by offering a Cape Town Accommodation only option for fans that have their own tickets.

Townsville V8's, Townsville V8 Supercars update

V8 Supercars has kicked off this weekend in Adelaide. We had a great Q&A session at the Sportsnet Holidays V8 drivers function & I have put up a link to it on youtube. I also got some not so good feedback saying we need to rework our Clipsal 500 offering as it had been the same for 2 years, hard to hear but much appreciated.

This is a great read especially for the SMH which doesn't have a great rep in V8 Supercars reporting, it is 5 V8 drivers to watch in 2010.

The event that seems to have everyone in the office pumped this year is the Townsville 400. The Townsville V8 accommodation is also a city street circuit. I am not sure why that makes in more captivating.

This year we have got more Townsville V8 Supercars tickets and a greater choice of Townsville V8 accommodation on the site. For those of you who don't know the Townsville V8 Supercars date it is 9-11 July and you wont get a better dose of winter sunshine than in Townsville.

Melbourne F1 News Australian Grand Prix

Finally saw some advertising and promo around town for the Australian Grand Prix. The Melbourne F1 race has been our number one traffic driver for months now and I was really concerned that there didn't seem to be a vibe out there. Powder Finger are the main entertainment act ( I will be at that one).
Bookings have been a bit slow since Christmas so we put a new short stay Australian Grand Prix Travel package in the market which is only 2 nights. We have never had short stays before with the Australian Grand Prix, it has always been 3 to 5 nights. Hope things will really kick on now the promotion has started. At Sportsnet Holidays we love the Aussie Grand Prix like the Australian Open its first of the season and always throws up a surprise or two.

Socceroos World Cup South Africa

Every time there is another Socceroos game the World Cup buzz lingers for days. Two good bits to look at on BBC Africa. The first one is the African experience of trying to by world cup tickets. It took Sportsnet Holidays over a year to get World Cup tickets & World Cup Tour accreditation and corporate hospitality rights and we had a heap of experience in Africa. The process was tough but fair. You have to feel for those guys, even if we moan it makes you feel lucky we have such good systems in Australia. The other good one is a Soccer Fans Guide to Cape Town a great city which will be packed with Socceroos fans. Looking forward to the Socceroos vs the Kiwis at the G. Remember the last World Cup send off match, for those of not going it should be a great atmosphere.