It’s Dubai Duty Free Irish Derby day and I’m up with the finches and robins this morning to fly to Ireland to attend one of travel retail’s great social and sporting events. On the eve of this year’s big race, the great sporting festival (Dubai Duty Free sponsors three days of racing and a charity dinner) has
Miscellaneous
Lower Kiwi tobacco duty free limit yields ‘results’ – and questions
1) The facts. New Zealand Customs Minister Nicky Wagner says Customs has destroyed over 2.5 tonnes of abandoned tobacco and collected NZ$1.35 million in additional duty and taxes since the drop in duty free allowances from 250 sticks to 50 last November. 2) The spin. “People seem to be learning about the change,” Ms Wagner
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Miscellaneous
Assessing the shop window effect in airport retail
Travel retail executives often talk about the ‘shop window effect’ of airport retail but what is your favourite actual shop window in the channel? Shop window displays, like airport advertising, have always held a trainspotter-like fascination for me. I’ve long considered Hermès just about anywhere to be best-in-class but there are plenty of rivals. Over coming
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Miscellaneous
Kicking up a (Brand) storm in Paris with L’Oréal
“The Ultimate Business Competition since 1992.” No, we’re not talking European duty free since the European Commission tried to scrap the business that year (finally succeeding in 1999) but a tremendous, long-running innovation by French beauty products giant L’Oreal called Brandstorm. Brandstorm is L’Oréal’s unique business competition for students globally to unleash their creativity and apply
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Miscellaneous
Time for a cheeky Nando’s at Gatwick Airport
I’ve just been out for a cheeky Nandos. Now you, like me, may ask “What’s a cheeky Nandos?” The answer depends on who you talk to. ‘Know your Meme.com’ says the following: Cheeky Nando’s is a British expression typically used on social media to describe a quality dining experience at the South African restaurant chain Nando’s.
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Miscellaneous
Ollie Ollie Ollie, Oi, Oi, Oi
Remember Ollie? Silly question. How could anyone forget Ollie? Ollie is the 9 year-old nephew of Sara Stevens (sstevens@thenuancegroup.com), HR & Training Manager for The Nuance Group (UK) in Southampton. He has spent a long time in Birmingham Children’s Hospital undergoing gruelling treatment for a rare bone cancer called Ewing Sarcoma. During nine months of chemotherapy,
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Miscellaneous
Why we must remain hand in hand with Haiti
I’m at Toussaint Louverture Airport in Port au Prince, Haiti, flying back from an unforgettable experience at the Lycée Jean-Baptiste Point du Sable, the wondrous, world-class school inspired by and funded by the belief and commitment of the travel retail industry. I’ve spent several great days with the inspirational Olivier Bottrie, President, Travel Retailing Worldwide of Estée
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Miscellaneous
It is not the critic who counts
Down by the white of Lauder He wears no necktie but a Panama hat His passport shows a face From another time and place He looks nothin’ like that And all the remnants of his recent past Are scattered in the wild wind He walks across the marble floor Where a voice from the duty
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Miscellaneous
Bert’s blues in Basel
Oh, Mama, can this really be the end, To be stuck inside of Basel With the Mulhouse blues again. – With apologies to Bob Dylan Welcome to Bert’s. I am at EuroAirport Basel Mulhouse Freiburg and I may be here for a long, long time. Having got up earlier than the birds today to catch an early
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Miscellaneous
Groundhog day in Miami; Paradise in Panama
Welcome to The Moodie Report Interim Panama Bureau. This morning I was woken up by the lapping of the waves on the shore below my room and the chirping of the birds (actually, in this social media age, I guess they were tweeting). A little piece of Central American paradise. I’m here for the annual
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Miscellaneous
Heathrow pays lip service to American cultural icon
No I’m not in New York, I’m at London Heathrow Airport Terminal 5, my second home. At the (very real) risk of dumbing down one of the world’s great landmarks, Heathrow Airport has created the ‘Statue of Liperty’ , a two-storey replica of the famous New York monument made of lipstick. It’s designed to celebrate