I have survived my second tour of duty at London Fashion Week (LFW) unscathed (unless you count a case of serious, possibly incurable, shoe envy). You may remember that my debut visit to the event, last September, proved somewhat draining – I just about managed to recover in time for Cannes. Nonetheless I jumped at
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Miscellaneous
Ken Tse: Bringing it all back home
Great to see Ken Tse back in the business. This morning’s announcement by LS travel retail Pacific that they’ve secured Ken’s services as Head of Operations – Duty Free & Luxury represents a masterstroke by General Manager Ivo Favotto. Ivo knows Ken well from their shared time at The Nuance Group and will have been
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Miscellaneous
He’s a Craggy Ranger and he’s ok
Courtesy of our national carrier British Airways, my Yeti-like carbon footprint has probably earned me enough air miles to fly from Heathrow to Neptune four or five times a year, first class of course. As a result let’s just say that I’m well versed in terms of the BA product. I could probably recite their entire inflight
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Miscellaneous
Recognising Olivier’s glorious obsession
As mentioned in my last Blog, I should have been in Haiti this week but had to postpone at the 11th hour due to political turmoil there which disrupted transport and led to widespread strikes. I hadn’t been able to tell you why I was due in Haiti. Now I can. It was to witness
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Miscellaneous
Unleashing the power of a smile
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