The Moodie Blog

It is a truth universally acknowledged that – even if you’re sat at the pointy end of the plane – most people look better getting on a long-haul flight, than they do getting off it. That was certainly the case for this writer en route to the recent TFWA Asia Pacific Show in Singapore, thanks to a first-class makeover by Linda Burns, who was at London Heathrow T5 to promote the long-awaited European travel retail launch of Dolce & Gabbana’s The Make Up, from P&G Prestige.

Linda Burns makes over The Moodie Report’s Rebecca Mann at Heathrow T5

To celebrate the launch, on 10-11 and 17-18 May, passengers were offered make-overs by Guest Celebrity Make-up Artists Emma Kotch and Linda Burns, who are more used to making up the likes of A-listers Renee Zellweger, Kristen Stewart and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley (gulp). Burns arguably faced the challenge of her professional career when I rocked up in my long-haul travel clothes, sans a scrap of slap, ready for a 13-hour flight, but boy, did she rise to the occasion.

In 15 minutes flat, without so much as breaking sweat, Burns completely transformed my face, gifting me a flawless complexion and a modern, smoky eye, while chiselling the kind of cheekbones I could have cut bread with. I’ve enjoyed a lot of make-overs during the years and this was by some distance one of the best, thanks to a combination of Burns’s skills and the quality of the products she used. If there’d been a spare seat on the plane I’d have whisked her off to Singapore with me.

(Dolce & Gabbana face) Scarlett Johansson is probably not too troubled…

Instead, I had to make do with the next best thing: a customised list of all the products and shades Burns used – a nice touch which has no doubt helped to drive sales during the promotion. If only WDFG could have bottled her talent too, my spend would have been stratospheric.

I celebrated my new look with a little retail therapy (it would have been rude not to), an Elemis massage and a glass or two of fizzy pink – both courtesy of the BA Lounge. Consequently I boarded my flight looking, and feeling, like a million dollars. Alas, when I disembarked, the sum in question was closer to a couple of quid. But heck, it was fun while it lasted.

As the clock ticks down to The Moodie Report Great Travel Retail Educathlon (28-30 June), word is coming in of some extraordinary fund-raising efforts around the world.

As reported, the 2013 event is the follow-up to the hugely successful Moodie Multi-National Marathons of the past two years, which have raised over US$650,000 across the worldwide travel retail community.

It encourages participants from the travel retail industry to complete 7k on any of the chosen days in any location in the world. But in a new twist, they can complete the distance by any means at all – including walking, running, cycling, swimming, flying, ballooning, rowing, surfing, triathloning – the more creative the better.

Many industry executives have grouped together to form their own teams – and a number have forged ahead with some gold medal fund-raising performances to date.

Among them is Band on the Run (named after the 1973 Paul McCartney & Wings album of the same name), comprising King Power Group’s Sunil Tuli together with well-known industry executives Jessica Howells, David Spillane, Barry Geoghegan, plus Jessica’s husband Jon Howells and Billy Norman, known in travel retail as head of the Billy Norman Band, which has played many an industry event with distinction.

The group had an initial fund-raising target of US$15,000 – but such has been the number of pledges (US$20,000 and rising) that it has now doubled the projected figure to US$30,000.

Tuli tells us: “We have been shown a lot of support from friends and associates for this cause, and we are hoping to raise more in the next month or so before we do the Educathlon on 28 June.”

You can help give wings to Band on the Run by donating here - http://charitygiving.co.uk/jessicahowells

To support this and/or other teams, donations can be made either to specific registered participants or into a central race fund, with the money raised going to a group of local regional educational charities or schools nominated by some of the world’s leading travel retailers and industry bodies. These include:

ALIA PRIMARY SCHOOL – Nominated by Aer Rianta International ME
HAND IN HAND FOR HAITI – Nominated by DFS
KARATAS VILLAGE SCHOOL – Nominated by The Nuance Group
THE LOTUS FLOWER TRUST – Nominated by WDFG and WiT
SOS CHILDREN’S VILLAGES – Nominated by Dufry

The view from The Moodie Report’s Marina Bay Sands bureau is stunning and the facilities below my 40th floor room are something pretty special too.

What an amazing city state this is, and what a great choice of location for the relocated TFWA Asia Pacific show. Give me this view over that from, say, the Pan Pacific any day.

Like most of Asia’s travel retail industry, it seems, I’ve arrived in Singapore for one of the key events on the calendar.

After years of turning up at the same venue, everyone is intrigued as to how the Marina Bay Sands Expo & Convention Centre will fare as a venue. First impressions are pretty favourable – the hotel itself epitomises modern Singapore: sleek, spectacular, vast and vibrant. The sprawling style won’t be to everyone’s taste but in terms of keeping delegates together on (an admittedly immense) site, it does the job.

The conference hall was cavernous, as big a classroom set-up as you would encounter outside a Moonie wedding ceremony, and boy was it packed for an excellent opening conference that surely attracted a record crowd.

Things kicked off in style on Sunday night with the Opening Cocktail at Raffles, a fun if sweltering affair organised in trademark slick fashion by TFWA.

[What is Stuart Bull telling the TFWA film crew?]

Industry attention is of course also tuned into Singapore for other reasons as the heat is turned up on the core category tenders currently out to bid at Singapore Changi Airport.

There DFS will be defending its liquor & tobacco concession and Nuance-Watson the perfume & cosmetics contract. Both have done a top-class job in Singapore. Both know they will face intense competition, not least from one another, with a glittering field of international retailers expected to take part.

[DFS Group's liquor & tobacco Arrivals duty free store to the left; Nuance-Watson's perfumes & cosmetics outlet to the right]

Given DFS’s wholly unexpected clean sweep at Hong Kong International Airport last year, this contest has extra edge. For Nuance-Watson it’s really a must-win after the bitter disappointment of Hong Kong. Nuance President Roberto Graziani promises a double-barrelled effort at both concessions but whether Changi Airport Group would put both commercial eggs in one basket remains to be seen.

Given that context, it’s been interesting to watch the DFS offer take shape at Hong Kong International Airport in recent months. I’ve flown through there several times this year and each time progress on this vast retail project has moved up a notch. Some of the hoardings are still in place but things are moving on at pace.

Liquor & tobacco seems to be the area where most progess has been made and there are a number of DFS innovations in place. Note the Lan Kwai Fong cocktail bar and complimentary wine tasting device below. It’s going to be a few months before the whole vast store network is transformed across all three core categories. And while that transformation takes place, another contract saga will be playing out at Hong Kong’s rival airport, Changi. In this business the drama never lets up.

I’m well settled in to The Moodie Report’s temporary Sanya bureau to cover the annual China Travel Retail conference but it was a close run thing…

I’ve long joked that the epitaph on my gravestone should read ‘Free of duty at last’ and that was very nearly the case after my Hong Kong Airlines flight to Sanya on Hainan Island landed earlier this week.

Never have I seen so much duty free in the overhead compartments. Never have I seen so many inflight sales recorded on a single journey.

The Chinese man in front of me, who alighted the plan laden down with liquor, tobacco.confectionery and beauty products, bought every  travel adaptor the airline had in stock (he could have powered half of China with his bounty), more jewellery than you would find in Buckingham Palace and half a Sephora shop’s stock of beauty products for his wife.

I don’t know if the airline made the usual post-landing “Be careful when you open the overhead compartments as items may have moved during the flight and could fall out” announcement. But if they did, my fellow passenger was not listening.

Duly he opened the compartment. What followed was like a duty free rainstorm. Down came the packs of Mild 7; down came the Chanel beauty items; and down came the Remy Martin VSOP. Down on me, that is, with the exception of the boxed bottle of Remy which bounced off my shoulder onto the head of a poor hapless old lady sat behind me. For a moment VSOP seemed to signify ‘visibly stunned old pensioner’ but she took the blow with remarkable calm.

“Sorry, very sorry,” the passenger said to her, seemingly oblivious to the sizable Mild 7-driven impression in my forehead (admittedly a good-sized target).

Never mind, what’s a scrape or two with fine duty free products compared with seeing our industry in such flourishing shape?  But if I ever do leave the world in this fashion, then I hope I’m upgraded at least to an XO.

The Moodie Report team has pledged a unique collective assault on the Great Travel Retail Educathlon – the 2013 follow-up to the hugely successful Moodie Multi-National Marathons of the past two years.

To be held between 28-30 June, the event encourages participants from the travel retail industry to complete 7k on any of the chosen days in any location in the world in support of a range of charities. But in a new twist, they can complete the distance by any means at all – including walking, running, cycling, swimming, flying, ballooning, surfing, triathloning – the more creative the better.

London-based members of the Moodie team have opted to complete the 7k on the water. Starting from Brentford lock just by our offices, and with a professional coach assisting, ‘Team Moodie’ will be using kayaks, canoes and paddleboards to head up-stream from Brentford towards Hanwell, 3.5km and (hopefully) back.

The Moodie marine team is hoping for an improvement on the recent bitterly cold weather in London for as the old adage goes, you can’t have your kayak and heat it too.

Team members include the aptly named Ed Lake, Gavin Lipsith, Genevieve Knevitt, Helen Pawson, Joanna Puckett, Mandy Sime, Matt Willey, Mike Sawicki, Rahul Odedra, Rebecca Earley, Rebecca Mann, Richard Jell, Victoria Bowskill, Ying Wei and Adam Collier.

Elsewhere in the world, the Moodie diaspora will be completing the task in various ways:

-  Deputy Chairman Dermot Davitt will be climbing a mountain; 7km up and back, he informs us.  Galway Mountain Rescue (http://www.gmrt.ie/) is understood to have drafted in extra resources for the occasion.

-  Melody Ng, based in Singapore, will be braving the local heat to run the 7km in typically determined style.

-   And finally our non-London UK team, Claire Wates, Sarah Genest and Mary Jane Pittilla, will be joined by family and pets to complete 7 loops of their local lake – walking (not on water, although it’s rumoured all of them can), jogging and cycling.

The fundraising site for ‘Team Moodie’ is up and running – visit www.charitygiving.co.uk/joannapuckett to donate or sign up yourselves at www.moodieeducathlon.com

The Moodie Educathlon – Helping support education worldwide. Please support us.

Note: Charities to benefit from the Educathlon are:

SOS CHILDREN’S VILLAGES , Brazil – nominated by Dufry

ALIA PRIMARY SCHOOL, Bahrain – nominated by Aer Rianta International-Middle East

LOTUS FLOWER TRUST, India – nominated by World Duty Free Group and Women in Travel

LYCÉE JEAN BAPTISTE POINT DU SABLE, Haiti – nominated by DFS Group

KARATAS VILLAGE SCHOOL, Turkey – nominated by The Nuance Group