Blog

Making a difference on the front line

Sometimes stories can slip quietly under the radar when they actually deserve real prominence. One such example was an initiative this week by French travel retailer  Aelia, which organised a day themed ‘Journée Des Sens’ in France. The concept brings together many of travel retail’s most successful fragrance and cosmetics brands with Aelia’s front-line sales

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Hair today, gone tomorrow

Germany company Braun, synonymous with excellent products, is generally under-stated in its press releases so The Moodie Blog’s attention was drawn to the bold claims for the new Braun Satin Hair 5 Multistyler. Now it has to be said that The Moodie Report Publisher has not had to shop around for any sort of hair

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Son of a Preacher Man leaves travel retail

The only one who could ever reach me, Was the son of a preacher man, The only boy who could ever teach me, Was the son of a preacher man, Yes he was, he was, oh yes he was. I don’t often start my Blogs with Dusty Springfield songs but then the travel retail industry

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Promoting partnership, not beauty contests

Today’s announcement by Zürich Airport that it has extended the contract terms of its key commercial partners is highly significant, not just in contractual terms but also because of the way it was articulated. The airport’s Chief Commercial Officer Peter Eriksson (below) has quietly emerged as one of the most influential figures within the international

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Hand in Hand for Haiti – reflections on a journey

[Publisher’s introduction: I have been in Haiti over recent days in my role as a Founding Member of the Hand in Hand for Haiti Steering Committee*. There I joined up with my co-Founders, Ed Brennan, Chairman and CEO of DFS and Olivier Bottrie, President of The Estée Lauder Companies Travel Retail Worldwide. We were there

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Hand in Hand for Haiti – discovering inspiration on the Central Plateau

And so our final road trip begins – a return excursion from Port-au-Prince to the town of Thomonde in Haiti’s vast and chronically poor Central Plateau. To get there we need to take the long, two-and-a-half hour drive north east from the capital through spectacular mountain scenery and scores of tiny villages. We’re going to

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Hand in Hand for Haiti – a Green field hospital of hope

Our journey around Haiti is nearing its end. After our epic drive to and from Les Abricots, Saturday night is spent back at the Auberge Inn in Jérémie where our host Juliette Nicolas Tardieu produces a splendid meal. Again there’s rice, chicken, goat and plantain with plenty of the excellent Barbancourt rum (tonight we drink

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Hand in Hand for Haiti – the rich fruit of Les Abricots

You know a place is isolated when it doesn’t even rank a mention in Lonely Planet. And our journey to the tiny, rural outpost of Les Abricots is about to show us why. A municipality in the Jérémie Arrondissement, in Haiti’s  Grand’Anse Department, Les Abricots is home to one of the world’s great educational initiatives –

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Hand in Hand for Haiti – Jérémie, City of Poets

We’re all emotionally moved and humbled by our visit to shanty town Cité Soleil as we make our way back to the domestic terminal at Port-au-Prince’s Toussaint  Louverture International Airport. If ever there was a case of people crying out for help, it is those we met this morning. The humility we saw and the

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Hand in Hand for Haiti – inside Cité Soleil

It’s a 5.45 a.m. start today, to allow us to visit Port-au-Prince’s infamous shanty town Cité Soleil, before we fly to Jérémie in the south west of Haiti. You don’t just walk into Cité Soleil – it’s a dangerous place on many levels, home to some 250,000 residents who live in acute poverty and amid

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Hand in Hand for Haiti – from Les Cayes to Camp Perrin

Next step on our whirlwind trip around Haiti is Les Cayes, the country’s fourth-biggest city. While not impacted directly by the January earthquake, it has seen a surge of refugees from the worst-hit areas, especially Port-au-Prince. We’re right next to the Caribbean here, on the site of an old rum port. Sister Marthe from the

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Hand in Hand for Haiti – a touch of divine intervention

God moves in mysterious ways… After we return to Jacmel Airport for our onward journey to Les Cayes, we encounter a group of nuns from the famous Missionaries of Charity, founded by the legendary Mother Teresa. Mother Teresa died in 1997 but the Roman Catholic group has stayed true to her remarkable mission to help

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