When you think Morocco, think the movie Casablanca.
Imagine Bogart, Ingrid Bergman and you and the wife having a whisky together down in Rick’s Cafe. You might meet up with the ghosts of Jack Kerouac, Tennessee Williams or the wayward poet Allen Ginsberg, all former residents of the coolest city on the Med.
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Think the immortal line: “Meet me in the Kasbah.”
Can there be anything more exotic in this world? It’s a question I’m still trying to find the answer to.
So I’m Googling away idly some years back, and I find myself looking for a guest house in Tangier, where they keep the spices and the turbans and the mystical little alleyways of a million adventure movies.
And I find an establishment right in the heart of the Kasbah, a place called La Tangerina. At a website called LaTangerina.com.
You should go there sometime. I do, a lot.
Sitting here in the heart of the Karoo, mostly in the dead of a snowy winter, I put on my Google Wings and fly off, for a few minutes, to La Tangerina for some mental relief from the cold.
I start with the 360-degree virtual tour of the establishment, with views of the Mediterranean from the rooftop dining area, to one of the ten guest rooms where I think I see our luggage lurking, down to the elegant foyer and then off to the restaurant, where it seems Jurgen and Farida (the owners) have laid on a special spread for us.
Farida’s mother has prepared her home-made pastille, which I’m going to try right after I taste the lamb tagine (being a Karoo boykie these days, of course). Pudding will be something simple yet delicious: oranges with cinnamon, followed by a single-malt nightcap up on the terrace, looking out over the city lights.
And although I’ve obviously never been to Tangiers in person, I feel like I know the staff and lodgings of La Tangerina in minute detail. Not only do I know a lot about this guest house – I love it.
My point? You guessed it. La Tangerina has a great website, with interesting features, tightly-written copy and a very good photographic gallery that captures the essence of the magic that is the café society of Tangiers.
Prices and specials are available so you can do your sums from home and make sure it’s affordable. There is a link to the essential TripAdvisor, which boasts more than 450 reviews on this guest house – mostly very favourable, giving it four-and-a-half stars out of five.
The website has all the day trip travel info you need for your excursions, and the duty manager will gladly put you in touch with guides and transport companies should you need them.
La Tangerina has an awesome Facebook presence, with more than 10 000 fans, friends or likers. I’m one of them.
Destination marketing done right is all about an excellent web presence. From there, the digital tentacles go out to social media, associated websites, national marketing initiatives and affirmation sites like TripAdvisor.
Word of mouth has always been the key to marketing. These days, most travellers check you out from afar, digitally, before they commit good money and precious time to your area and, equally vital, your tourism asset.
And if people are saying good things about you on Search Engine Avenue, others are listening attentively. And they will, invariably, be paying you a visit in person.
But before you can start the rave party going, you have to tell the story of where you are.
I’m never going to spend a fortune just to fly all the way up to La Tangerina just for the sake of La Tangerina. I’m going because I want to see Morocco. Then I want to see the city of Tangier. Then I want to shop in the Kasbah.
Then, at the end of my experience funnel, I want to stay in a nearby, welcoming establishment. Like, say, La Tangerina.
Looking around some of the South African provincial websites, I am immediately drawn to the major centres of Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban. For the most part, the sites are stimulating and informative.
Likewise, I can digitally travel Route 62 through the Little Karoo and then back on and off the N2 along the Garden Route.
But when I poke around the Free State, Northern Cape and Eastern Cape sites, it’s like walking around one of those new “ghost villages” in China: nice enough structure, but no people, no furniture to speak of.
I do this travel writing gig for a living, with actual boots on the ground, in an old dusty bakkie through more than 100 little towns across vast distances. I know for a fact that the Free State, Eastern Cape and Northern Cape have many La Tangerinas waiting to be discovered and enjoyed.
But how the hell is anyone ever going to find them if they maintain Internet silence? Or if they don’t tell their story as well as the big centres do?
Is South African tourism destined to remain one boring circuit of the Cape Town Waterfront, Kruger National Park and a nervous night in Jo’burg?
Why, for instance, is a Karoo Farmstay not an essential part of a tourist itinerary?
Or the Williston Winter Festival, where they dance the Nama Riel, not a must-attend for guests both foreign and domestic? With not a pesky seagull or a bored lion in sight?
The next big item on my travel schedule is the Draadkarretjie (Wire Car) Festival in the little Northern Cape village of Philipstown.
It’s right up there, on my Bucket List, just above a week at La Tangerina Guest House, in the heart of the Kasbah, in the Moroccan city of Tangier…
Featured image: LaTangerina.
