Latest posts by Martin Moodie (see all)
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This Blog comes to you from The Moodie Report’s Interim San Francisco Bureau, at the quite wonderful Kensington Park hotel on Post Street.
The Kensington Park is part of a group called Personality Hotels, a collection of boutique properties in San Francisco and the Bay Area. And you know what? It’s just… lovely. My long-suffering assistant Rebecca Earley (she’s always earley, I’m always late) has been forgiven all past and future sins for finding this gem.
This sumptuous, yet quirky 1925 Gothic style building evokes a forgotten age of elegance. I could spend all day just sitting in the lobby admiring the hand-painted ceilings and the artwork, while partaking of the complimentary tea and (get this!) sherry offered nightly to guests.
[Elevator doors like you never saw before]
Almost unbelievably it’s also got its own theatre – the San Francisco Playhouse. As I write, Stephen Sondheim’s and George Furth’s acclaimed ‘Company’ is being played out six floors below. Alas, my sad Moodie Report-afflicted life, dominated by that beast of a website that never sleeps, means I will not get to take in the performance.
I’m here in this magical city to continue work on a special project I have been tasked (no, make that honoured) with, details of which I will reveal in coming months. But I also took time out today to dash to San Francisco International Airport and meet Cheryl Nashir, Director, Revenue Development and Management. Cheryl’s a remarkably insightful woman who really gets on a deep intellectual level what airports could and should be doing in terms of serving their “guests” (her term).
The airport is currently building up to a major tender for its duty free concessions, run successfully for so many years by DFS Group, a competition that is certain to attract white-hot interest. At our Trinity Forum in Hong Kong later this month, Chief Business & Finance Officer Leo Fermin is hosting a briefing on that tender, which is certain to be well-attended.
I’ll feature my interview with Cheryl next month in our Print Edition but for this Blog I wanted simply to highlight San Francisco Airport’s magnificent, arguably unrivalled, commitment to championing community art as well as San Francisco’s and the airport’s heritage. It’s late at night and I have a big day tomorrow so I’m going to let the pictures, rather than me, tell the story. But gosh, don’t they just do so? [I’ll add some more pictures before departure to London tomorrow. Look out for them, they’re worth the wait.]
