Up close and personal in travel retail
Armed with my trusty Pokefi, I am seldom out of wi-fi contact. Trains, boats and planes, Ubers, it makes no difference. Heck, one day I might even get to post a story on a helicopter or in a submarine (though that would technically make me a sub-editor).
Hong Kong – beautiful, vibrant, multi-cultural Hong Kong – is alive again. It has emerged from the age of darkness, a horrid and prolonged period and there will be – despite some bumps along the way – no going back.
My throat feels like I have been dining on sandpaper and as a result I have a voice that makes Lee Marvin’s almost death rattle version of Wand’rin Star sound like it’s being sung by a boy soprano.
The Moodie Davitt Report chose ‘Straight and True’ as the tagline for our sponsorship of the golf carts on day one, the mantra the antithesis of almost every golf shot I have played in my life.
The Trinity Forum was back for the first time since those halcyon days of late October 2019 in Doha, Qatar. Little did we realise amid the euphoria of that event that we would not meet again for so long.
“I’ve a blue dress on so you can recognise me.” Both of us were there on time, albeit 50 metres apart, Pam thinking she had been stood up. Me? You guessed it. Chatting away to a bemused woman in a blue dress. Who turned out not to be running retail at Gatwick Airport but was impressed that I knew so much about it…
“Get Shiseido on the line. Two bottles down and we’re still not finished with him…”
Matilda’s name (and I’m not making this up) was taken from Australia’s beloved folk song ‘Waltzing Matilda’, a result of her penchant for stepping waltz-like from side to side.
This week we’re on location in Bordeaux, the heart of French wine country, with one of the great names in Australia wine. Australian wine, you say? In Bordeaux? Well yes. I had better explain, though full details will follow in several weeks once a news embargo is lifted. I’m here in the centre of Bordeaux,
Can something as logistically focused and technologically based as a global distribution centre be beautiful? In its own almost futuristic way, yes.
If you’d offered me 20 years back then I would have, as they say, bitten your hand off. Probably, without sounding too cannabalistic about it, your arm, elbow and shoulder too.
It almost feels like déjà vu looking at my colleagues’ daily update from Florida with the usual show diet of exhibitor photos, workshop speeches and social gatherings. Almost. Some of the exhibitors are wearing masks, something we would have considered weird at the equivalent show in 2019.
I shall never forget the scene at The Trinity Forum in Shanghai when the 550-strong audience stood as one to honour Khun Vichai, a giant photo of him beamed out while the mournful lament of Bill Fay’s ‘The Healing Day’ played.