How was it that I felt confident enough to take my cannabis oil home? Simple. It’s been stripped of the principal psychoactive constituent (the THC) and is every bit as legal as carrying a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black or 200 Marlboro Lites.
Events
Out alone in the Atplastic Ocean
As a sector, travel retail is a serial offender. One that is contributing every day to the Atlantic turning into the Atplastic.
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Miscellaneous
Filipino flair and Chinese spice: Viewing travel retail through a different prism
People often ask me where I see the next big opportunity in travel retail. Which market? Which consumers? Which categories? Three days in the Philippines has helped shape my answers. Except I wouldn’t say ‘next’ opportunity. It’s here. It’s now. It’s happening.
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People
And when the wind blows…
“When the wind blows,” was his evocative, very Chinese way of saying that big opportunity lies ahead and that CNSC must be ready.
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Events
There may be truffle ahead
Many commentators believe there may be truffle ahead in the Year of the Pig but to me that’s hogwash, the sort of prediction I might have made in my younger, rasher days.
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Events
Time to hit the road again
I’ve been 32 years in travel retail now, the past 17 at The Moodie Davitt Report, and I can honestly say that I’m bringing as much energy into this one as I did all those years ago in 2002 when we set off on our journey.
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Miscellaneous
Onwards into a bright new year
We are, above all, an information service. But we are one with a voice. Those factors collectively bestow responsibility on us. Our information must be timely, reliable, accurate. Our voice must be responsible, ethical and selective.
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Events
All black in Dublin but all good in Dubai’s Turmeric Open
I know the Irish founded the duty free industry but I didn’t realise they a) still populated it in such quantity and b) all had my phone number.
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Miscellaneous
Writing around the clock in beautiful Busan
By the time my first coffee kicked in, I had big stories on the boil from the USA (14 hours behind) and Brazil (11 hours), and news in from New Zealand (four hours ahead). All I need is a store opening from Kiritimati and I could (almost) report on yesterday, today and tomorrow simultaneously.
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Miscellaneous
“In Khun Vichai, the world has lost a great man”
Khun Vichai was a man not simply of great achievement but one of compassion, grace and humility. He gave then gave again to all manner of causes, big and small.
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Miscellaneous
Marshall lore or time to call the sheriff?
I am surprised that ACI Europe would allow such a blatantly self-serving, inaccurate and unfair article to be published.
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Miscellaneous
Sears, tears and fears in travel retail
Welcome to the age of the omnipresent e-commerce giants, the Black Swan of 21st century retail that, like all Black Swans, no-one saw coming out of the darkness and into the bright, blinking daylight of a reimagined shopping age.
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Airports
International Duty Free: 60 years young
In 1958, Aldo Vastapane created the first duty free shop at Brussels Airport Company; a humble incarnation of a retail concept that only existed at Shannon Airport in Ireland. What a beautiful image, so evocative of an age gone by.