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EQUINOX

SOUTHERN SUN HOTELS

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INTERCONTINENTAL SOUTHERN SUN

HOTELS & RESORTS

SOUTHERN SUN HOTELS & RESORTS

SOUTHERN SUN TIMESHARE RESORTS

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N one of us will easily forget the country's immense jubilation and

pride as the 2010 World Cup Soccer Bid Announcement was made public in May this year. As the official hotel sup­ plier to the 2010 soccer bid, we take this opportunity to once again applaud Danny Jordaan and the entire Bid Committee for their tireless efforts in helping to bring the World Cup home to South Africa. We look forward to working with FIFA during this very important build­ up period.

Two of our hotels were once again in the spotlight this quarter. Congratulations to Holiday Inn Dar-es-Salaam on receiving the Tanzania Tourism Board award at the annual African Tourism Association (ATA) Con­ gress in Douala, Cameroon. The hotel was acknowledged for its outstanding efforts to promote Tanzanian tourism within the United States market.

Congratulations also go to the Sante Winelands Hotel & Wellness Centre, a Southern Sun Collection Hotel, on being voted one of the '16 Best Spas on Earth' by UK Elle magazine (May 2004). It is the only spa on the African continent to receive this prestigious accolade. Since its opening late last year, Sante Winelands Hotel and Well­ ness Centre has sparked interest from all over the globe. Domestic travellers will be par­ ticularly interested in the superb winter specials currently available at the hotel.

Our dynamic 'Restaurants of Distinc­ tion' drive has started with great fanfare. We were delighted to once again play host to BBC's Ready Steady Cook celebrity chef, Ainsley Harriott, during his Unite Against Hunger fundraising tour in June. A highly Helder Pereira entertaining Ready, Steady, Meet evening Managing Director

was held with our own Executive Chef, Lorenzo Mottalini and Ainsley at the InterContinental Palazzo hotel followed by an anti­ ageing brunch at the Inter­ Continental Sandton Towers hotel. Some of you may have caught Lorenzo and Ainsley

entertaining the television audience on SABC 3 Talk in June. We look forward to welcoming Ainsley back to South Africa in August for the second leg ofhis campaign.

Southern Sun is also proud to be the official hotel supplier for the Altech Formula One two-seater Grand Prix at AA Kyalami in August. The money raised fi:om this event will benefit the children from the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund and Unite Against Hunger, a crisis food relief program spear­ headed by food giant Tiger Brands. The event will take place over the weekend of August 6 - 9 and includes top international music artists and extreme sports that will wow the expected 100 OOO-strong crowd. Among the Formula One drivers who have been invited to the country for the event are Jos Verstappen, Gian Bruni, Zolt Baumgartner, Nelson Piquet, Damon Hill and Nigel Mansell. We trust you will enjoy the racing.

Finally, let me once again take this oppor­ tunity to thank you all for your continued support and look forward to welcoming you at our hotels.

Sincerely

Welcome

tanding outside the world-class, glass-and-steel Cape Town International Convention Centre, looking across the road at Southern Sun's Cullinan Hotel and the Holiday Inn Cape Town Waterfront just beyond, it's hard to imagine that just 60 years ago next year, you would have been standing at the bottom of Table Bay. But that is indeed the case.

Fifty-nine years ago, a Frenchman with an eye for sweeping vistas and grand spaces completed the city's much-vaunted land reclamation project of the Foreshore area. Cape Town had its world-class dry dock and the reclaimed land was soon being developed. In 2004 that development continues as a visionary scheme to reunite the city centre and the popular Victoria & Alfred Waterfront, begun in 1999, is now well advanced. Old waterways between the two areas have been reopened, new ones built, sophisticated apartment blocks have risen, cafes, walkways and public areas have been finished and new design houses have sprung up.

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area, nestled under Lion's Head and midway between the V &A Waterfront and the city, has been caught up in the excitement. The entire 10km2 area, known as the 'silver square', has become South Africa's most talked-about development success story. Southern Sun saw the potential early and was quick off the mark, acquiring the superbly situated Cullinan Hotel, followed shortly afterwards by the neighbouring Holiday Inn Waterfront.

The Cullinan Hotel Across the road from the recently completed Cape Town Inter­ national Convention Centre and at the gateway to the V&A Waterfront, The Cullinan is one of the city's most distinctive hotels. Its architecture is deliberately classical in an effort to blend with the city's Victorian heritage.

Indeed, the hotel's cupola imitates that of the celebrated Cape Town City Hall east of Adderley Street. Its triple­ volume entrance hall, marble foyer, imposing colonnades and spiralling staircases hark back to a grander era. Which is all the more surprising, because it is also one of Cape Town's best value-for-money hotels.

The Cullinan Hotel's general manager, Barry van Coller, explains the hotel's approach: 'We wanted to offer a hotel experience that was both great value and distinctive. The Cullinan is like nothing else in Cape Town. It has so much character and its location is absolutely spot-on.

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Top: The Holiday Inn Cape Town Waterfront reflects a fresh nautical theme. Above: The Cullinan Hotel's classical architecture blends with the city's charming old Victorian buildings.

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'Our guests can walk to the Waterfront, walk up vibey Long Street into town or along Somerset Road. They can also walk across the road to the Cape Town International Convention Centre and down the road to the Artscape Theatre. Alter­ natively, of course, we offer a shuttle service to all those venues'.

He adds that the hotel's theatre packages for shows such as Phantom if the Opera and Lord if the Dance are extremely popular.

The hotel caters for both leisure and business travellers and boasts magnificent views of Table Mountain and the sea. There

TEN THINGS TO DO IN THE 'SILVER SQUARE'

• Visit the new, architecturally magnificent Cape Town International Convention Centre. It boasts a state-of­ the-art theatre, a number of restaurants and the new international jazz venue, Marimba.

• Take in a play at the Artscape Theatre. • Take a drive down trendy Somerset Road, Green Point, with its bars, clubs, supper clubs and restaurants.

• Visit the just-completed Cape Quarter dining and shopping quadrant off Somerset Road in Green Point. It is Cape Town's latest, trendiest meeting place.

• Walk up Long Street towards Table Mountain and take in Greenmarket Square, the pan-African arts and crafts market and admire the many old Victorian shop fronts often used in movie shoots.

• Walk along the recently completed water canals from the Cullinan Hotel to the V8.A Waterfront.

• Visit the V8.A Waterfront's latest shopping and dining experience, the Clock Tower precinct, five minutes' walk from the Cullinan Hotel.

• Catch a ferry to Robben Island from the Mandela Gateway at the Clock Tower precinct.

• Visit Twice International, considered one of the con­ tinent's best contemporary furniture emporiums, off Somerset Road.

• Take a tour to the Sante Winelands Hotel and Well­ ness Centre near Stellenbosch and have a relaxing spa treatment. Organise the trip through the con­ cierge desk at the Holiday Inn Cape Town Waterfront or at the Cullinan Hotel.

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is an outdoor pool, and modem points in the rooms and data points on the phone lines in all 410 rooms for business visitors.

On the first floor, breakfast is served in the panoramic Peach Tree Restaurant with views over the pool and out towards the V&A Waterfront.

On the ground floor, Kelsey's Fish & Grill is the ideal spot for lunch or dinner, with most diners popping into Kelsey's Cocktail Bar for a quick drink on the way in or out. The bar spills out onto the pool deck and on warm days a cold beer enjoyed outside is a great way to unwind or meet friends before a night on the town.

Holiday Inn Cape Town Waterfront Next door to The Cullinan Hotel, the Holiday Inn hotel greets the world. Like the Cullinan, it is ideally positioned to play host to international and local guests looking to make the most of Cape Town. The hotel is a centre for all that's happening in Cape Town, thanks to a concierge desk that prides itself on its keen local knowledge.

It's an impressive edifice, with 546 rooms, including 24 exe­ cutive rooms and 193 queen rooms. As is expected with the Holiday Inn brand, standards are high and each room has air conditioning, a safe, satellite television, a modem, direct dial phones and tea-making facilities, among other features.

Non-smoking rooms are available and there is a gym and a beautiful pool with views of Table Mountain.

Downstairs, the expansive Continental Coffee and Cocktail bar is as sophisticated as you'd expect in this chic city. The bar is great for pre-dinner and after-dinner drinks and is a popu­ lar meeting spot in its own right. The Yizani Restaurant serves lunch and dinner from an extensive buffet or a carefully thought-out a la carte menu with a range of choices.

Small conferences can be held at the ideally situated Holiday Inn Cape Town Waterfront. Its two conference rooms offer a meetings product that provides a ready-to-use, all­ encompassing conferencing service for up to 18 delegates. I3!l

• www.southernsun.com • Southern Sun Customer Contact Centre -rr 0861 447744 • The Cullinan Hotel 'il" (021) 418-6920 • The Holiday Inn Cape Town Waterfront 'il" (021) 409-4000 • E-mail: [email protected]

comfortable On a par with tourism icons Robben Island and Cape Town, the Kruger National

Park is South Africa's wild frontier. And right on its doorstep is Southern Sun's

Malelane Sun Hotel. Stef Porter went for a walk on the wild side.

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