Bad news and good news. My trip to Haiti this week for a visit to the Hand in Hand for Haiti school, Lycée Jean-Baptiste Pointe du Sable, has been postponed at the last minute due to some unrest in the Caribbean nation. I’m disappointed as it would have been my first chance to see the
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Miscellaneous
Finding a breath of fresh air in Budapest
Excuse the gap between Blogs but being struck down with a chest infection while on the road is a pretty effective deterrent to creative inspiration. All of us in this industry who travel a lot know that horrible feeling of being a long way from home when illness strikes and it’s certainly one that puts the
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Miscellaneous
Talking the Trinity talk and walking the walk with Budapest Airport and Heinemann Hungary
As Interim Moodie Report Bureaus go, this one may rank as one of the most wintry. Hard to think that just a week ago I was gazing out over crystal clear Caribbean waters in the Bahamas. Now I’m looking out the window from my room at the Airport Hotel Budapest. It’s 1 degree outside and the
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Miscellaneous
Good to great with OTG but less than Admiral-able in Miami
Friday: It feels like a scene out of Groundhog Day. Suddenly I’m back at Miami International Airport, filling in a five-hour gap before my flight home to London. Straight off the 30 minute flight from Nassau (goodbye beautiful Bahamas) and there’s the same rather disappointing Bacardi Mojito bar that I saw a few days back,
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Miscellaneous
OTG crew show iron will, foodie flair and cocktail creativity
If you think the contestants on TV’s MasterChef are under pressure, you want to attend the OTG ‘Iron Chef’ competition at the airport restaurateur’s annual Business Partner Trade Show (currently on in Nassau, the Bahamas, and to which I gave the keynote address at the day one conference). Like the American television series of the same
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Miscellaneous
From a Mumbai masterpiece to a Bahamian rhapsody
There are worse views, considerably so, than the one I woke up to at The Moodie Report Interim Bureau in Nassau, the Bahamas this morning. I’m staying at The Cove Atlantis and while it’s a pretty modest 22 degrees here today, that’s a whole lot warmer than the bitter 3 degrees I left behind in
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Miscellaneous
Come in he said, I’ll give you shelter from the storm
‘Twas in another lifetime, one of toil and blood When blackness was a virtue and the road was full of mud I came in from the wilderness, a creature void of form “Come in,” he said, “I’ll give you shelter from the storm” – Bob Dylan, Shelter from the Storm (with a mild edit) You’ll
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Miscellaneous
A feast of the senses at a big, fat Indian wedding
They don’t come much bigger. Or much fatter. I’m talking weddings. Indian weddings. And I’m still trying to take in everything I have seen over the past three days. Firstly some context. Mumbai-based Travel Food Services is not only India’s largest airport food & beverage operator but its Chairman Sunil Kapur is also one of
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Miscellaneous
Mumbai on red alert as the world says “Je suis Charlie”
Mumbai is on alert. Terrorist alert. Mers alert. Ebola alert. But mostly, alas, the former. The signs at Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport tell their own story. So does the heavy armed police presence; the exclusion of meeters & greeters from the terminal; and the barrier-studded road into the airport. Yesterday cleaning staff at the airport noticed some
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Miscellaneous
Sherlock homes in on Schiphol lost property
We closed out 2014 with the story of a real-life cat burglar, a feline fiend that ate its way through US$1,100 of gourmet fish products at Vladivostok Airport’s duty free shop – well in excess of his purrsonal allowance. Now word reaches The Moodie Blog of an equally talented animal, a beagle by the highly
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Miscellaneous
Starting all over again
Two days into 2015 and I’m in my first airport departures lounge of the year. What took me so long? Heck, there’s only 357 travel retail shopping days left to Christmas. This is my first airport experience of 2015 but I can guarantee it won’t be my last. I’m sipping on a Penfolds Koonunga Hill Autumn
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Miscellaneous
Let auld acquaintances never be forgot
Well I guess I can’t let the criminal deeds of a Siberian cat burglar be my last contribution for 2014 so I’ll sign off The Moodie Blog here, the 101st of the year. Tonight, like many of you, starting not long from now in my native New Zealand, I’ll be signing off one year and welcoming
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Miscellaneous
Breaking Mews Alert: Apawling crime committed in Siberian duty free shop
Shock news reaches The Moodie Blog of the purrfect crime – a male cat eating his way through US$1,100 of gourmet fish products after breaking into an airport duty free shop. And no, I’m not kitten you – this is a true story, an absolute travel retail catastrophe. According to The Siberian Times, the “gourmet
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