Primed for the international focus likely to result from next year’s 2010 FIFA World Cup, Wines of South Africa (WOSA) has revamped its website (www.wosa.co.za) with some of its information now provided in as many as ten languages and at least another ten to follow soon., The accent will be on languages spoken by many of the world’s major football enthusiasts.
Streamlined for easier use and simpler navigation, the new-look website offers a selection of world-class, high-resolution, copyright-free photographs of the Winelands, wineries, wines, top tourist spots and people., It features a regular blog and carries video clips, a range of articles and industry statistics, as well as ratings and reviews from internationally respected wine critics from around the world.
“While the website is intended as a resource for local and international members of the wine fraternity, we are doing everything possible to provide a quick-stop wine and wine tourism information destination for foreign journalists preparing to cover the World Cup,” said WOSA CEO Su Birch., “The selection of images, data and general information that even includes Cape cuisine recipes and food pairings, has been based on the range and nature of queries we have been receiving from visitors to the website and will be regularly updated to give an easily accessible overview of South Africa as an exciting, diverse and quality producer.?+¦?-¼?+«+ë?+¦???+½?+¦???+¦
“From transformation in the industry to terroir, ethical trading to eco-sustainable production, history to future plans, the site gives a very comprehensive snapshot of wine in South Africa.
, “Currently we are offering some information in the major European languages, such as Spanish, Portuguese and French that are also spoken in Africa and Latin America, as well as German and Italian but we are also focusing on Filipino, Korean, Russian, Mandarin and Japanese to reach a broad spectrum of international football lovers., Swedish, other Scandinavian languages and additional Asian languages will be included in due course.”
Birch added that the Fundi project was one of the most popular features of the site and was attracting significant interest with journalists the world over tracking the progress of the initiative that aims to train 2 010 wine waiters in time for the influx of visitors for next year’s World Cup. Training is being funded through the sale of Fundi wines.
,”Despite the global credit crunch, we are making good headway with foreign sales., We are now listed on Virgin Online in the UK and have been shipping wine to Sweden, Finland and Canada., We are also hoping to secure orders from Asia., We are heartened by the high level of interest from the media, who are helping to communicate details of the initiative.”
Birch said WOSA was using social networking tools such as Twitter to access an ever-increasing number of visits to the site., “Twitter gives a taste of the type of information new to the site and encourages viewers to sign up for our newsletters, find out more about industry developments, conservation of indigenous habitat in the Winelands, access international commentary and more.”
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