Latest posts by Martin Moodie (see all)
This comes to you from The Moodie Report’s interim Phuket bureau. I’m here to help an old (well he’s my age so that truly counts as old) Kiwi friend with his excellent new online Phuket tourism guide, What’s On-Phuket (http://www.on-phuket.com/) while clearing my head from the stresses of recent months and planning the next stage of The Moodie Report’s journey now that I have bought out my fellow shareholder of recent years.
One of my first strategic decisions may be to relocate HQ from Brentford, UK to Thailand such is the exquisite natural beauty of this island and the splendid simplicity of daily life here. When you run your own company holidays are necessarily a hybrid of work and relaxation, mainly the former. But the scenery, sunshine and (occasional) Singha beer makes the work very much a labour of love (something it has always been for me anyway).
As promised in my last Blog, en route to Phuket I stopped off again at the DFS duplex wines, spirits & tobacco store at Changi Airport T3 where I met up with DFS Singapore Regional Merchandise Manager Patricia Sim. Patricia was on-site to organise a special event that evening, featuring an in-store tasting and bottle signing by Jim Beam Global Brand Ambassador Gordan Dundas, one of a series of planned consumer engagements involving DFS’s lead suppliers and its key customers throughout the year.
To be or not to be (in Changi), that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to sip on
The Singapore Slings that arose from outrageous good fortune
– William Shakespeare, Hamlet (almost)
Patricia lives and breathes DFS. People like her are the human tapestry of which great companies are woven. Singapore has long been a great DFS heartland but Patricia and her colleagues know that the retailer has raised its (and the industry’s) game to a whole new level here at T3.
She took me through some of the features that I had missed during my fleeting visit earlier in the week, including a real-time video feed from the Glenfiddich distillery in Dufftown, Scotland that brings the beauty of Banffshire and the magic of single malt making to (real) life right in front of your eyes. Wonderful.
[A distillery worker rolling a cask in the Glenfiddich distillery, all shown via a live stream to Changi]
Enough, however, on Singapore. It’s time instead for a Singha pour and back to the delights of Thailand. It’s lunch time and I can almost see my meal swimming.
Good to see Pat Sim being acknowledged.
DFS wouldn’t be as successful as they have been, at Changi, without Pat & the others that built the DFS business over those many years!
Cheers from a guy that had sold several DFS Leading Liquor Brands to Pat & her colleagues, for 19 years!
Dear Martin,
Thank you very much for your heart warming & kind words. This is very touching for me personally, as I have been with DFS for 35yrs and this is the 1st time to be featured & to read such beautiful comments in a Duty Free News.
Enjoy Phuket and have fun.