Ao Yun（敖云）– destined, I think, to become one of the world’s great wines – means ‘above the clouds’, which given the amount of time I spend in exactly the same place, makes it one I hope to drink a lot more of in the future
Travel
On the road from Riyadh to Macau to Brisbane
I will be spending a great deal more of my time in the Kingdom going forward and I will not be alone within the travel retail community.
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Travel
Coming to a cinema near you: The Old Man & The Misfiring Laptop
While I would never have been likened to Robert Redford in his prime, the combination of his senior incarnation and the film’s plot did rather remind me of myself. I’m thinking of approaching him regarding a remake.
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Travel
Getting ahead of myself on the road to Riyadh
“Mr Moodie,” the check-in agent said in the tone one usually reserves for an elderly and confused grandparent. “Your flight is not until tomorrow. The 20th.”
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Events
Free as a (Kiwi) bird and flying high in Haikou
With me barely leaving my desk from 6am to midnight for several consecutive days due to needing to get our latest China Travel Retail Report eZine over the line, it has at times felt a rerun of one of many COVID hotel quarantines.
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Travel
Saying Namaste to Noida and getting ready for APTRA India
“Namaste. In India we never say goodbye, we say hope to see you again.”
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Travel
Hunkering down in paradise with the horn-eyed ghost crabs
If the crabs – carefully protected here by man as well as themselves – don’t want company, neither do you. This is a place to simply let go, to feel the weight of mental pressure and physical tiredness dissolve.
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Travel
Sipping a botanical journey across Vietnam and talking Trinity in Ho Chi Minh City
I don’t so much have a bee in my bonnet as a whole hornets’ nest about the lack of Sense of Place in most airport retail offers. The SASCO shop shows what can be done with investment, imagination and a real understanding of a culture and its associated crafts and products.
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Airports
Mastering the perfect serve with Aperol Spritz
The perfectly served Aperol Spritz inspired me to play this lovely passing shot straight out of the Carlos Alcaraz handbook {Note: No passengers were harmed in the making of this photograph}.
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Airports
Up, up and away again in 2024
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.
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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.
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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.
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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…