Ben was doing what all good airport commercial managers should do, spending time on the shop floor, watching, evaluating. What’s working. What’s not.
Travel
No L, No L – A very British Christmas carol
“No, it’s ok, I’m getting off at Cardiff, and it’s actually easier for me to stand,” the mother replied unconvincingly as she swayed stoically in a carriage resembling a human club sandwich.
Read More
Travel
Finding triumphant evidence of Merriam-Webster’s word of the year at Qatar Duty Free
Now here’s what you call a driving force in airport retail. About the only thing that can stop (fortunately) Qatar Duty Free Senior Vice President Thabet Musleh is the brake on his buggy.
Read More
Travel
Up close with the Masters of Time and landing a big Hennessy scoop
Oh dear, I don’t think Bovet 1822 will be calling for my CV just yet…
Read More
Airports
Spell it backwards or forwards, wow is wow
“We have one of the best buildings, I would say, of any airport in the world. We want to create a passenger experience matching exactly to that status.” And that is precisely what is taking shape at Terminal A.
Read More
Travel
Typecast at Hong Kong Airport with a beautiful reminder from Hermès
For month upon miserable month through the pandemic, HKIA resembled a cross between a ghost town and a military hospital. You could almost sense the tumbleweed about to blow along the arrivals hall. How good it is to see the place humming once more.
Read More
Events
Sunrise in Shanghai, tenderness in Tokyo; and the cream of the crop with Sōmrus
I’m up, up and away again on one of those aircraft, on a 16-hour, 8,045 mile flight to New York, the first leg of a two-week journey that will in six days hence see me in Cannes for the TFWA World Exhibition.
Read More
Travel
Meeting a guardian angel called Maki at Tokyo Station
For a moment prospects of recovering my laptop seemed between slim and none. And slim, like my train, had just left town.
Read More
Travel
Back in HEL’s kitchen and bound for Hong Kong
But my life, my wife and my heart are in Hong Kong these days and I am looking forward to an extended stint living out of my home rather than out of a suitcase.
Read More
Travel
Discovering the ins and outs of international travel
I’m back in blighted Blighty where an increasing number of things simply seem not to work anymore. Fortunately one of them is called Boris Johnson but elsewhere the situation is rather more serious.
Read More
Events
Creating unforgettable memories with Maison Margiela
Chris Lee, delicate, almost bird-like in her androgynous beauty, was the star of the show, generating a rapturous reaction from hundreds of fans gathered for the event launch.
Read More
Travel
How my encounter with Keanu Reeves passed by in a blur
And so my readers will just have to take my word for it and my colleague stay with her husband. Yes, I did meet, chat and have my photo taken with Keanu Reeves. But like my life in general, the moment passed by in a blur.
Read More
Travel
Back in blighted Blighty
The wretched, long-discredited ruling (as in they make up the rules as they go along) Tory party stumbles from fiasco to fiasco, epitomised in our industry of course by their stupendously inane decision to scrap tax free shopping.