The Moodie Blog

Encouragement, cajoling and volumes of literature and music continue to fill my electronic and postal mailbag as I plough into my prolonged medical treatment programme.

As one would expect from this industry, plenty of it has been of the cheeky kind.

David Spillane of Travel Retail Sales picked up on Brian Collie’s urging that I should continue writing during my illness by adding his own postscript: “It’s great to see you’ve taken up Mr Collie’s advice… keep up the Blog… as someone who has played golf with you, it is true to say that writing is the only thing you’re good at!”

More seriously, Ingrid Tatham of Diageo Global Travel Retail Asia Pacific recommended what she considers a ‘mindset-changing’ book – ‘Anticancer, a new way of life’ by Dr David Servan-Screiber. Having read and been enthralled by the work, I concur wholeheartedly and would recommend it to anyone who is suffering from this disease or who wants to prevent it.

[Available from Amazon.com]

Dr Servan-Screiber, a prominent neuroscientist, argues that lifestyle – including environment, diet and psychology – plays just as important a role in beating cancer as do conventional treatments (chemotherapy and radioactivity), and offers an essential safeguard against developing cancer in the first place.

“We have to begin by detoxifying what we eat,” he argues, arguing the merits of ‘must have’ spices such as turmeric and several no-go areas (fortunately they do not include Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc, though he does recommend Pinot Noir instead, which is a pretty attractive alternative.)

Thank you Ingrid.

From heavy duty to lighter material – notably ‘The Tommy Cooper Joke Book’ provided by Aldeasa’s Martin Petchey to get me through (as it has) the low moments of treatment. It’s so good in fact I can’t resist repeating a couple of gems from the maestro…

Patient: “Doctor, I have broken my arm in several places.”

Doctor: “Well you shouldn’t go to those places…”

Or this…

The doctor examined the patient and said: “You will live to be 70.” The patient replied: “I am 70!” The doctor said: “What did I tell you!!?”

All your messages and calls help. I remain as convinced that I will survive this challenge as I was the day I was diagnosed. The Moodie Report has many more chapters to write and I intend to be around writing many of them, albeit with a slightly amended philosophy to what had been a perhaps too all-consuming professional life.

In that regard I take my cue from a quote from the inspirational Dr Servan-Screiber, who writes: “Until we have brushed up against mortality, life seems boundless and we’d prefer to keep it that way. It seems that there will always be time to set out in search of happiness. When we put off till tomorrow the quest for the essential, we may find life slipping through our fingers without ever having savoured it.”

HMSHost’s new-look food & beverage offer at Belfast City Airport, which was launched at a special event this week, hits some real high notes for the all-important qualities of newness and Sense of Place, we believe.

The Autogrill-owned concessionaire, which crucially, has an investment-friendly 10-year contract at the airport, unveiled a new Harvest Market concept, a Bushmills Bar plus the first Espression by Lavazza concept to open in Ireland.

The first two bring a much-needed Sense of Place to the environment, but do so in a clean, modern, upscale way, rather than the tacky, souvenir-driven approach one sees at some other airports.

In layout and design, Harvest Market (pictured above, and inspired by the market of the same name in the city) is simple and consumer-friendly, we found, with salad station, packaged food shelves and pizza oven all housed in their own separate zones. Again, how often at airports do we see a long line of customers queuing with trays while waiting for orders to be fulfilled at a single, central service point ahead? At Belfast, airport and concessionaire have taken that element out of the equation.

Harvest Market also plays heavily on the local produce and freshness of its goods, reinforced by a map of its regional suppliers on the wall – right by the wood fire pizza oven, which is sure to be another attraction for passengers here.

Bushmills Bar (above), created in partnership with Diageo, plays heavily on the traditions of the nearby distillery. This is one of the best bars you’ll see at an airport anywhere, with a premium environment, upscale furniture and just the right amount of light for this style of bar (i.e not a lot). The best accolade we can pay is that it wouldn’t look out of place in the centre of the city it serves, home to many famous pubs.

Securing the popular Lavazza brand for an airport of this size (around 3 million passengers a year) is also quite a coup, though notably it is located well away from the other key commercial areas, which may have an impact on footfall. Like the other concepts, it offers something different, and an element of surprise that will surely appeal to travellers.

Add in the new-look World Duty Free store airside, also recently opened, and Belfast City can boast a commercial environment that would be the envy of many other larger airports in Europe.

On Friday 23 July, our industry bade farewell to one of its longest-serving and most respected and popular retailers – Aldeasa US President Rod Wiltshire (pictured second from right above), who is taking well-earned retirement from full-time work (though he will remain an advisor/consultant to the Autogrill-owned company).

Rod worked with Alpha/Aldeasa for 15 years, having previously been with Ocean Trading for 20 years (with what he describes light-heartedly as “a parole of 10 years” in between with House of Fraser and Selfridges).

That’s a working career of 45 years, most of it in our sector, though there must be something special in the Florida air as Rod does not look a day over 50 (mind you, as the photos below show, he has changed a little over the years…).

He tells me how happy those years have been. Now Rod is off to enjoy other elements of his life with his wife Beryl, including getting his golf handicap down to 15 (some concerted work may be required – Rod is one of the few industry golfers that I may just about be all-square with after 18 holes of match play).

Aldeasa, he says, has been extremely supportive in his retirement process and he expresses his appreciation for the company’s support in his transition to the next chapter of his life.

Rod also pays tribute to his Alpha/Aldeasa team, noting: “As with any success, on whatever scale, it can only be achieved by great teamwork and I had a great team in Orlando and am eternally grateful for their professionalism and all their hard work and support during my time in the US.

“They created a genuine partnership with our suppliers which, I believe, had a major positive impact on the Orlando operations.”

Those words typify Rod’s generosity of spirit, a trait reflected many times down the years in the personal donations he made to various causes, notably one that he discovered long before the travel retail community did – cleft charity The Smile Train.

On a personal note, Rod’s words of encouragement and support to me during my current illness hit the right note to a rare degree, leaving me in no doubt that I would come through this test.

Several readers have asked whether we planned to acknowledge Rod’s huge contribution to the business and we do it with the utmost pleasure. He’s been a fantastic, professional servant to our business and a thoroughly decent and fine man.

Rod can be contacted at rodwiltshire@yahoo.com. Just don’t expect an answer when he’s out working on that golf handicap.

Tax Free World Association’s (TFWA) appointment of Alain Maingreaud as Managing Director appears a sound and logical move. Maingreaud, who replaces former CEO Olivier Charriaud, has been Exhibitions & Business Development Director of TFWA since 2007, and before that Commercial Director.

In other words he is expert at the association’s core business – running successful trade exhibitions. Despite well-founded concerns among many about the costs of Cannes as a location, few would quibble at TFWA’s expertise in organising and running its World Exhibition there – or the consistently excellent Asia Pacific show in Singapore. Maingreaud has been directly responsible for those events in recent times so his new role will surely strengthen the supplier association.

He will report to TFWA President Erik Juul-Mortensen (below), and the TFWA Board.

The future of the Presidency is still under discussion at Management Committee and Board level. TFWA is reliably understood to be considering a rule change to allow the option of having a remunerated President who is not involved in the industry in a full-time capacity.

That initiative, likely to be progressed at the next Management Committee meeting, has been prompted by the failure of the association to attract Presidential candidates to replace the respected Juul-Mortensen in recent years.

However, one has now emerged. In May, Estée Lauder Travel Retailing Worldwide President Olivier Bottrie (below) declared his intention to stand for the post of TFWA President.

That’s an interesting development. Bottrie’s outstanding executive reputation, and tremendous track record in the area of Corporate Social Responsibility (a key focus for TFWA) – he and DFS CEO Ed Brennan have been the driving forces behind the successful Hand in Hand for Haiti project – make him a strong candidate. It’s healthy for the association too that an industry major has put forward its top travel retail executive for the post.

It will be interesting to watch which route TFWA’s Board and Management Committee  members take in the future. We’ll bring you details as they emerge.

One of my favourite stories of 2010 to date is Airport Authority Hong Kong’s superb ‘Tasting Hong Kong’ community art campaign at Hong Kong International Airport – in my view a classic example of how airports can (and should) contribute to their local communities and cultures.

Tasting Hong Kong showcases visual artworks from ten local talents. Each collaborated on the project to present their innovative ideas on local Hong Kong ‘taste’ through different mediums, including painting, sculpture, multi-media and photography.

The interpretations were diverse, often thrilling and never less than fun. I particularly liked Margaret Chu’s ‘Pieces Together – A Collective Fondness for Each Other’ (below).

Inspired by the cheese cake served at the airport’s upstairs café, it depicts a rat and a cheese block and is designed to be an analogy for friendship. It’s impactful, quirky and guaranteed to engage consumers in their droves.

Hong Kong International Airport and its concessionaires regularly conduct great consumer campaigns. This is arguably the most tasteful yet, in every sense of the word.

Dubai Duty Free has won so many awards and other accolades down the years that it’s perhaps easy to gloss over them.

But that would be a mistake. For underneath the sales achievements and the often brilliant marketing and consumer campaigns, lies a tale of extraordinary brand development and a retailer that stands for much more than simply selling duty free products.

When Dubai Duty Free was named this week as Generation’s number one travel retailer for 2009 (by individual airport location), it represented an emphatic confirmation of the professionalism of a travel retailer that beat the recessionary blues to post record sales of US$1.14 billion in sales – amid the worst external (and industry) conditions in travel retail’s history.

But I prefer to look beyond those top-line numbers. Which travel retailer is always at the front of the queue when it comes to supporting major industry (and non-industry) charity initiatives, such as The Smile Train campaign, The Stuart Mangan Trust, Sri Lanka’s Travel Retail Village or Hand in Hand for Haiti? Yes, Dubai Duty Free.

Which travel retailer always goes beyond the call of duty free in ensuring fair, equitable and above market norms wages and conditions for its staff? Dubai Duty Free.

[Samson from Kerala, India, poses by a 25th anniversary sign bearing the pictures of all 3,700 Dubai Duty Free employees]

Which travel retailer has done more than any other to enhance the reputation of the whole duty free concept with the travelling public? Dubai Duty Free.

Which travel retailer has been run by a charismatic individual throughout its history, one (Colm McLoughlin) who has become synonymous with the channel and a revered statesman within it? Dubai Duty Free.

And which travel retailer has built and nurtured a brand with unwavering, consummate skill and dedication since its start-up just over a quarter of a century ago? Dubai Duty Free.

One could throw in a whole host of other indicators, not usually considered in bald, financial assessments of industry rankings, to measure the true greatness of this company. It’s been some story and, as underlined by last year’s results and charitable initiatives, it has many more chapters to be written.

Puig and Nina Ricci put on a show – literally – in London last week, at the launch of the new feminine fragrance, Nina L’Elixir. The scent, which will begin rolling out in travel retail in September, is an edp interpretation of the original Nina edt, launched in 2006. The fragrance face is 21-year-old British singer, songwriter and drummer Florrie Arnold.

The advertising campaign for the fragrance is an innovative collaboration between Florrie and Nina Ricci. “We are launching a new communication concept with a 360° approach,” explained Nina Ricci Brand Director Margerie Barbès Petit. “This represents a new type of advertising in our industry.”

In the 30-second TV advertising film – directed by Nez, who has also worked with Lily Allen, Mika and Paulo Nutini – Florrie will sing her interpretation of Blondie’s “Sunday Girl”.

In addition to the fragrance advertising, Nina Ricci will produce a music video of the full Sunday Girl pop cover to help support Florrie’s career, which will be released at the same time as Nina L’Elixir.

It’s a clever tie-in that is sure to bring valuable exposure to all parties. Florrie rocked the house at the Sunbeam Studios last week, winning over an army of journo fans. Our fave Florrie track to date? “She Always Gets What She Wants”. For more information check out www.florrie.com

Out of the mouths of babes hast thou ordained strength – Psalm 8:2

You know the symptoms. Your heart is racing. Your blood pressure is rising and your pupils dilating. Dry mouth, shaking hands and there’s a maddening, giveaway tremor in your voice.

Just about anyone who has had to address a public audience will recognise the symptoms of speech anxiety – or glossophobia to give the condition its technical name.

Down the years I have faced some tough audiences – big industry conferences, in-house workshops, buyer forums. But they don’t come much tougher or more daunting than a group of five to ten year-olds at our local school.

The occasion was an address to Montpelier Primary School (which my two youngest children, Ali and Samira, attend) to talk about travel retail’s Hand in Hand for Haiti project. Samira (below), aged 8 and a feisty wee character, is on the School Counsel and was keen to forge a relationship between Montpelier and the project’s school in Haiti, which is due to open in January.

Move over The Trinity Forum, TFWA conferences et al. These kids really know how to ask probing questions.

“Why is Haiti so poor?”

“How can it stop being poor?”

“Will the children pay to go to school? How can they afford to?”

“What will they study at school?”

“Why was there slavery in Haiti?”

And so on. And so on. Out of the mouths of children…

I am delighted to say that the end result is that Montpelier will become the first sister school of the Haiti institution. And to kick off that relationship, each class is having a coin collection for Hand in Hand for Haiti, with a nice prize going to the class that raises the most.

As reported, Hand in Hand Steering Committee Members Ed Brennan (DFS Group) and Olivier Bottrie (The Estée Lauder Companies) recently put a stake in the ground (below) to mark the beginning of the school development in the chosen location of Saint Marc.

Given the well-documented problems in turning donations into meaningful aid in Haiti, Hand in Hand for Haiti is fast turning into a role model of how to conduct reconstruction projects. The plans have been endorsed by the Haitian Minister of Education, Joel Desrosiers Jean-Pierre, and fully supported by the French Ambassador, Didier le Bret, who called the project ‘the most important investment in the field of education outside of [capital city] Port-au-Prince in the past 30 years’.

How good it is that our industry, travel retail, can create such momentum, while maintaining absolute transparency and accountability for funds raised. Including all those coins from a little school, thousands of miles away, called Montpelier.

That bad case of glossophobia was worth it.

The L’Oréal group has released preliminary details of its latest line extension – and it’s a very precious limited edition.

International Communications Director Travel Retail Worldwide Gersende de Barbeyrac gave birth to a beautiful baby boy, Ferréol de Saint-Exupéry, on 5 June.

Everyone here at The Moodie Report would like to extend our congratulations to Gersende and to her (newly-extended!) family.

Since the departure of the brave All Whites from New Zealand (my apologies to all Italian readers for our role in the demise of the Azzurri), my allegiances have switched constantly in this most compelling of Football World Cups.

The event, so wonderfully organised by South Africa, has gripped the attention of millions worldwide, and the airport and travel retail communities have been no exception. A personal favourite is Cyprus Airports Duty Free Shops’s World Cup Adventure (below) but there have been many others that have simultaneously injected local and international flavour into the airport experience – and a lot of fun and customer interactivity.

There has been much merry banter around the industry’s astoundingly fast e-mail network – much of it at England’s, France’s and Italy’s joint expense it must be said – and many examples of international humour at his best.

On a personal level I didn’t know whether to laugh, whoop or jump for joy when ARI Group Retail Operations Director Nick Forbes sent me a text detailing The All Whites’ dramatic 92^nd minute equaliser against Slovakia while I was undergoing one of the many procedures that form part of my current medical treatment. As that procedure was an enema, let’s just say my celebrations were muted…

I loved our report yesterday on how Amsterdam Airport Schiphol has entered into the spirit of the occasion by placing its own specially designed ‘World Cup stadium’ (pictured top) in front of the airport entrance, seating 325 people. Passengers, commuters, Schiphol workers, and meeters and greeters can watch the matches live on the Astrovision screen.

With the mighty men from The Netherlands surging through to the final, expect an over-capacity crowd there on Sunday.

It’s also good to see how a number of suppliers are taking advantage of the World Cup to promote their products.

 At Schiphol, for instance, a professional team of street soccer artists is present at the Dutch gateway to promote a new gift set from L’Oréal Men Expert. And to promote South African cream liqueur Amarula, the brand owner has created a booth, decked out in the Amarula way of living, with a football table and seats. On busy days (and I guess most are these days at Schiphol), a hostess hands out samples. Never was meeting and greeting at Schiphol more fun.

I suspect there are similarly grand-scale efforts taking place in various German and Spanish airports today and boy will the two finalists be well supported in their respective international gateways in the lead-up to Sunday. Like football, travel retail is a great international community and it’s lovely to see the two crossing over.