A priceless exchange

I am not a deeply religious man but in illness I have found a spirituality I did not think existed. Not just in myself but in many of the people I know in this great, warm and embracing travel retail community. No-one will ever tell me again that we are a superficial sector that simply

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Let it rain

Let it rain, let it rain. Let it rain, rain, rain – Eric Clapton Faced by volcano ash clouds, a weak currency, collapsing travel companies and British Airways cabin crew strikes, who could blame millions of Britons for becoming ‘staycationers’ this year and shunning foreign holidays? Formerly strong forward booking trends for foreign holidays have stalled

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Ivo bowls them over

Anyone who knows Ivo Favotto, The Nuance Group’s Executive Vice President Strategy & Business Development (who is set to return to his native Australia to become Director – Sydney Airport for the company), knows that he plays a straight bat. The down-to-earth Italian Aussie is one of the good guys in this business, someone who

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Eton Mess anybody?

Now this is what I call a promotional campaign with taste. And it’s exactly, exactly, the sort of thing that airports should be doing to promote their country’s culture, crafts or traditions. Passengers flying through Heathrow Airport are to be treated to what we are promised will be the ‘best bites of Britain’, to mark

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Clogau prompts first Welsh gold rush – in Cannes

The Moodie Report usually wears out a lot of shoe leather visiting stands at Cannes, but this journalist may need to take extra footwear this year, given the number of times she plans to visit the Clogau stand. Clogau miners dig deep for Welsh gold Firstly, the leading Welsh gold jewellery brand has promised to

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Jack Daniel’s and DFS lend a hand to the children of Haiti

This has to rank as one of the best collaborative initiatives between a brand and a travel retailer in years. Brown-Forman Duty Free/Travel Retail has chosen an uniquely artistic way to mark the 50th anniversary of its long-time close partner DFS. The Brown-Forman team asked artists from around the world to turn barrels in which

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And who but my lady greensleeves

Greensleeves was all my joy Greensleeves was my delight, Greensleeves was my heart of gold, And who but my lady greensleeves. – Traditional Decades ago when I was a young boy I used to tell my mother that when I was a ‘grown up’ I would buy her a green dress, in honour of her

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The Moodie Report pictures come a cropper

The photos that people send you to accompany stories featuring them often reveal much about the subject. There is one well-known, lovable Asian figure in this industry for example who insists we use a photo that we believe was probably taken sometime in the 1970s – not that he has changed that much… When we

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Hooray for Andrew Harrison

It is great to see Andrew Harrison being promoted to Managing Director of Manchester Airport from his current role as Commercial Director. Not only is it justified and rich reward for the excellent developments that Harrison has driven across a wide range of sectors (including duty free, consumer services and food & beverage) in recent

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Catching up with Usain Bolt

The Moodie Report and our friends at Delaware North Companies last weekend managed where the world’s top sprinters have so often failed: we caught up with Usain Bolt, Olympic 100-metre champion and the world’s fastest man. On Sunday, The Moodie Report was a guest of Delaware North’s UK division at Wembley Stadium for the Community

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Maintaining a champion’s image

It was great to catch up with Colm and Breeda McLoughlin and several of the Dubai Duty Free management and staff at yesterday’s annual Dubai Duty Free Shergar Cup race meeting at Ascot racecourse just outside London. The event is the only team competition in horse racing, featuring four teams of three jockeys representing Ireland,

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Do you always take your gin neat?…

Feedback on last week’s Blog about ‘The Tommy Cooper Joke Book’ (kindly given to me by Aldeasa’s Martin Petchey) underlines the comic maestro’s enduring popularity (he died in 1984 during a live stage performance); especially it seems in the travel retail industry. I have been inundated with examples of his wonderful dry wit, so just

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‘Mentorship’ momentum

The ‘Mentorship Experience’ might not trip lightly off the tongue as a phrase, but based on the openings weeks of the concept’s installation at Dubai International Airport, it’s a project that could pave the way for future ‘Trinity’ style industry collaboration. In brief, this new initiative between Diageo GTME, Dubai Duty Free and Dubai Airports

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