My Interim Dubai Bureau, the Jumeirah Creekside Hotel, has been my temporary home many times down the years. It’s a lovely facility but there’s a strange hollowness to it at present.
Today a final commemoration is being paid here to long-time Dubai Duty Free leader Colm McLoughlin, who so sadly passed on 30 October. I was a pallbearer at Colm’s funeral in Ireland on 21 November and on this, my last stop on a near six-week road trip, I, like so many others, have come to pay a last tribute and to offer condolences to the family.
The Jumeirah Creekside Hotel is sited adjacent to the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Stadium. The glass walls along the corridor to the breakfast room are adorned with images of the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships, dating back each year to the event’s inauguration in 1993. Colm appears in many of them, mixing with the biggest stars of the game as effortlessly as he mixed with men and women of all backgrounds and roles in life.
With his loss still raw, it makes for poignant viewing. The farewells are done; the memories will endure.
Colm remembered in full-page coverage in Khaleej Times (left) and Gulf News
Since posting my last Blog, I have been in Paris, England, Wales and now Dubai. Lots of experiences along the way, including a visit to the headquarters of Mark Allen Group, the UK family-owned company that acquired The Moodie Davitt Report in late September.
Lon Y Coed in the little South Wales town of Ystradgynlais has been the administrative headquarters of The Moodie Davitt Report in recent years. I am pictured there with my daughter and Chief Administration Officer Sinead Moodie.With fellow Moodie Davitt members of the new MA Travel Retail Board in London last Monday. Pictured from left with me are my outstanding colleagues Irene Revilla, Sinead Moodie, Matt Willey and Dermot Davitt.
It’s an odd feeling not being an owner anymore after 22 years of independence. But life moves on and in Mark Allen and his son Ben, I find similar values of editorial and business integrity. So I am confident the relationship is the right one in securing the company’s future as I slip inexorably into my publishing dotage.
Great to have drinks and dinner in Dubai with Lal and Kreol Arakulath from Kreol Group and Jacqui Davies of Lagardère Travel Retail Middle East, my fellow Kiwi in travel retail (KITR)With travel retail industry colleagues (from left) George Horan, Jacqui Davies, Lal Arakulath and Jack MacGowan after Colm’s commemoration
13 December
My departure from Dubai International Airport offered a welcome opportunity to catch up with Dubai Duty Free Managing Director Ramesh Cidambi. On 1 December the travel retailer opened its first Reklaim corner, selling high-end, pre-owned watches in Concourse B.A second Reklaim will open in Concourse D later this monthMr Bones and I do get around, don’t we?Sensationally impactful Gucci advertising landside courtesy of JCDecaux Dicon
And this airside example, for Johnnie Walker Gold and courtesy of JCDecaux Dicon and Dubai Duty Free, is impressively powerful tooAs the old saying goes, there’s gold in them thar tills
Time to try my luck one last time for 2024 in the Millennium Millionaire drawIt’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, everywhere I go…My final ‘Final Call’ of the year. Time to catch a great white (A380) bird to Hong Kong.
On the road to Mandalay/Where the flyin’ Kiwis play/And the dawn comes up like thunder/Out of China ’cross the bay – with apologies to Rudyard Kipling as I head beyond Mandalay to Hong KongFestive touches and a flash sale greets shoppers at Beauty&You’s Hong Kong International Airport arrivals storeAlong with some hugely attractive price offersMy final duty-free store visit of the year takes me across the aisle to the always well-appointed Duty Zero by cdfAs I said, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, everywhere I go. Hong Kong International Airport is all dressed up for the festive season.And that’s it, no more Flying Kiwi in 2024
