The Moodie Report interim bureaus down the years have had some pretty spectacular views and this has to be right up there with the best of them. It’s early morning in Abu Dhabi and from my 7th floor window at the Fairmont Hotel I have a stunning outlook towards the magnificent Sheikh Zayed Mosque (below). I arrived into the ever-burgeoning UAE capital
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Miscellaneous
A Day in the Life of a travel retail publisher
“I read the news today, oh boy About a lucky man who made the grade” – A Day in the Life, John Lennon and Paul McCartney People often ask me: “What’s a typical day in your working life?” The short answer is: “There isn’t one.” But that doesn’t really do justice to the question, so
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Miscellaneous
Ain’t no party like a Clogau party
Fact: through my job, I get to go to a lot of parties, writes Rebecca Mann. Also a fact: it’s still work – though I appreciate there are worse ways to earn a living. Sometimes, events clash with personal commitments – over the years I’ve attended press launches on Mothering Sunday, my birthday, my husband’s
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Miscellaneous
Feeling Plucky?
January, surely, is the longest month of the year, writes Rebecca Mann. Yes, I know my calendar tells me it has 31 days – exactly the same as March, May, July, August, October and December. But every year, somehow January seems to last as long as all those other months put together. There are several reasons
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Miscellaneous
Tribulations to Triumph: The answers revealed
We had a fantastic reaction to our competition offering two lucky readers a free (and signed) copy of YS Choi’s new book ‘From Tribulations to Triumph’, the former Lotte Duty Free President’s story of the rise and rise of Korean duty free. As I told you on my last Blog, Mr Choi (pictured above left
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Airports
From Tribulations to Triumph through the eyes of YS Choi
With South Korea’s leading travel retailers in the news to an unprecedented degree (The Shilla Duty Free’s triumph in the Changi Perfumes & Cosmetics tender; Lotte Duty Free’s win in Guam; and Incheon International Airport’s record duty free sales in 2013), there’s certain to be widespread interest in a fascinating new book that examines the
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Airports
A day of triumph and loss, delight and despair at Changi
“If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same…” – Rudyard Kipling Well my last Blog wasn’t so far from the mark after all… For, just a few hours later, this time I CAN reveal the results of the Singapore Changi Airport duty free liquor & tobacco and
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Miscellaneous
Looking forward to catching up with some ald akwentans
Shid ald akwentans bee firgot, an nivir brocht ti mynd? Shid ald akwentans bee firgot, an ald lang syn? Fir ald lang syn, ma jo, fir ald lang syn, wil tak a cup o kyndnes yet, fir ald lang syn. No I haven’t been at the Christmas container of Cloudy Bay again. I just thought rather than
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Miscellaneous
Fill to me the parting glass
Then fill to me the parting glass Goodnight and joy be with you all – The Dubliners And so to my final Blog of 2013, begun at 34,990 feet above… who knows where? Destination nowhere. Destination somewhere. Like so many of my readers, the story of much of my year has been one told from
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Airports
‘Where’s Martin?’ contest turns into a tale of the unexpected
We had lots of entries in our ‘Where’s Martin’ contest, offering a bottle of Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc (from Marlborough, New Zealand) to the reader who could name the location shown in a series of fantastic photos from a fantastic place below I visited last week in the line of duty. The close-up shots of the cuisine
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Miscellaneous
Where’s Martin? Your chance to win a bottle of Cloudy Bay
In the mad dash to Christmas, I am back doing a few mad dashes of my own around the travel retail world. These will culminate in a world first at Dubai Duty Free this Friday, when I report in real time on the retailer’s 30th anniversary. Yes, Moodie Live, which we unveiled in October at
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Miscellaneous
Going the extra mile with planes, trains, automobiles…and camels
At The Moodie Report we love the many industry stories about the extraordinary lengths people will go to in order to get themselves or their products around the world. Word reaches us, courtesy of Dubai-based Al Nassma, of another such tale, this one featuring that prince of Arabian animals…the camel. Al Nassma is of course
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Miscellaneous
The commonality of excellence
Having just made my plane once more (I just don’t seem to function without a ridiculous deadline) this Blog begins at around 31,000 feet above Wuhan, China. Punctuated by a few snoozes and the occasional glass of the elegant and creamy Saint-Véran Pierre André 2011 and (maybe later) the crisp, grapefruit-led 2012 Spy Valley Marlborough