Aubergine, Marlow Bridge

I was with my best friend, which perhaps intensified the romantic atmosphere of the Compleat Angler, as there was no pesky real-life man to spoil it. The restaurant that now houses Aubergine has been here for donkey’s years, since its low-slung, vaulted, leaded interior was the height of the mode. (The panels in the cocktail lounge have been there for four centuries, apparently. The restaurant itself feels like English heritage via the 1930s. You can picture discreet affairs conducted in the dying days of the aristocracy. It’s all tremendously exciting.) The set menu (£45 for two courses, £55 for three) was preceded by a frankly horrid amuse-bouche – pickled anchovies that tasted of vinegar, on top of pickled carrots that tasted alarmingly of vinegar, drizzled in a saffron oil that was no match for the vinegar. I didn’t mind, to be honest. It seemed to be a new twist on the amuse concept – not a palate cleanser so much as a palate stripper. And it made us so grateful for our delicious starters.

Read more at Telegraph.co.uk

Whole Foods Market, Kensington

We grew tired of building monuments to God, so in the boom we took to constructing cathedrals to food. Great vaulted expanses sprung skywards around every town, where we were invited to worship not purity, but freshness. The spiritual foundations of supermarkets were always, in truth, a little shallow. Adverts might have described a raspberry fool as “heavenly”, but it could just as easily have used devil’s horns as decorative motifs.

The Lisbon earthquake of 1755 destroyed everything, including faith. The Cathedral of Santa Maria crumbled, crushing worshippers on a Catholic holiday. Voltaire asked how a disaster killing 100,000 innocents could be “for the best of all possible worlds”. The London economic quake of 2009 scored lower on the Richter scale, but left many citadels to capitalism in ruins. Supermarkets appeared particularly vulnerable, having elevated mere trifle to something almost worthy of worship. Just as the earthquake shattered belief, the economic tremors left many questioning the value of the food movement.

Read more at Telegraph.co.uk

Lutyens opens in Fleet St.

Terence Conran is hoping to lure journalists back to Fleet Street with the opening of his latest venture with Prescott & Partners – a French restaurant and bar called Lutyens.

The 130-cover restaurant in the former Reuters building in Fleet Street has been created by the same team behind Boundary & Albion in Shoreditch and includes a large bar with charcuterie counter, crustacea and sushi bar, members club and four private dining and meeting rooms.

Read more at Big Hospitality

Supersonic travel may return

(CNN) — Raoul Felder still remembers stepping off the Concorde without a trace of jet lag after it whisked him across the Atlantic at twice the speed of sound and wonders why there’s been nothing like it since.

The high-profile New York divorce attorney was a Concorde frequent flier, relishing each time he arrived at London’s Heathrow Airport a mere three hours or so after taking off from the Big Apple.

The journey takes at least twice as long on a conventional jet.

Read more at CNN.com

Belfast’s RevPAR strong

LONDON — Data from STR Global, the leading provider of market information to the world’s hotel industry, shows the decline of the Belfast hotel market being offset by surprisingly competitive recent revenue per available room. The year-over-year percentage change in RevPAR for the 14 hotels sampled by STR Global in Belfast—which includes a mix of independent, domestic and international branded properties—has been in accelerated decline since September 2008.

Read more at HotelNewsNow.com

Barceló chief sees dismal summer

MADRID — Spain’s tourist outlook for the summer is dismal with sales dropping between five and ten percent as vacationers cut back on spending and the length of hotel stays, predicted Simón Pedro Barceló, president of Barceló Corporación Empresarial hotel and travel group.

“This year is going to be very difficult as we’ve already seen from the 20-percent fall in industry sales during the first four months of the year, which was the low season,” Barceló said at an economic conference in the Spanish capital.

Read more at HotelNewsNow.com

Avis, HSMAI alliance for better service

Avis Norway and HSMAI Chapter Norway have signed an agreement aimed at improving service in Norwegian corporations.

The agreement, initially to last for a year, will give Avis access to important resources within the fields of service, networking and other resources of importance for the business life, while HSMAI’s member gain from Avis’s service expertise.

“We’re very pleased to be accompanied by just Avis, a beacon in the field of service,” says Ingunn Hofseth, HSMAI Chapter Norway’s president.

Service upgrade imperative

She is convinced that Avis, with its long traditions and international network, will contribute to bring important input in a Norwegian area in dire need of an upgrade, namely service.

“There’s no denying that we have a long way to go, which is also the reason why we focus on service especially, not least through our Service Conference and the national competition Serviceløftet [loosely translated: the Service Challenge] in September,” she says.

“A few areas of the agreement are of particular interest to us,” Avis’s sales and marketing director Tonje Fossum says, emphasising just Serviceløftet and the Special Interest Groups (SIG).

“Service is second nature to us,” she adds, with reference to We Try Harder, a slogan the company has lived by since 1962, while underlining the importance of establishing service standards.

“Cooperation rather than deterrence”

“I would hate to find ourselves in a position where we’re surprised in the face of good service. High standards should be the rule, which is where we think that HSMAI plays a key role, with the annual Service Conference, Serviceløftet and its relentless efforts to establish service standards throughout the year.”

Ms. Fossum emphasises that Avis strives to build relations and networks, such as HSMAI’s Special Interest Groups, where businesses cooperate rather than work against each-other.

“We intend to include large parts of our organisation in this. We’re extremely particular when it comes to this kind of agreements, but HSMAI has a good programme, giving us ample opportunity to learn across different trades, but also providing us an opportunity to contribute. Which is a win-win situation for HSMAI’s members and for us,” Ms. Fossum says.

Joint venture from HSMAI Norway and Norway Trade Fairs

The Norway Trade Fairs foundation and HSMAI Chapter Norway have competed with the Norway International Travel and Meeting Fair B2B and The Meeting Exchange. As of now the two join forces in a major effort for meetings, events, conferences and business travel.

The HSMAI Meeting Exchange will take place at the Norway Trade Fairs next year, as an integrated part of the Norway International Travel and Meeting Fair B2B, on Thursday 14 January 2010. The NITMF’s first day will be aimed at visitors from the business life and large-scale buyers of travel services.

“It is time to pull together, not to compete,” says HSMAI Chapter Norway’s president Ingunn Hofseth, while explaining how the organisation has considered new thinking with regards to the Meeting Exchange, its big annual event.

“I am confident that we’ll reinforce each-other, and that both the HSMAI Meeting Exchange and the Norway International Travel and Meeting Fair B2B will become even more attractive to the travel industry and corporate Norway on the whole. This is going to provide added value for the exhibitors,” Torill Engelberg Norway International Travel and Meeting Fair’s project manager, says.

Improved relevance

“The relevance requirements have increased significantly, and the joint venture with the HSMAI Meeting Exchange will contribute greatly in creating a strengthened trade and meeting place. The trade and competence dimension is the very foundation of our annual fair, where we put all our efforts in developing our product in pace with the market’s needs,” Ms. Engelberg continues, adding:

“The cooperation is founded on a joint effort aimed at international buyers (hosted buyers) on this day.”

“Norway Trade Fairs is a strong player benefiting the Norwegian travel industry. They’re deeply rooted in the trade, enjoying immense respect, which is why we find the joint effort quite natural,” Ingunn Hofseth adds.

Imperative cooperation

Ms. Hofseth is convinced that both events gain a tremendous momentum this way.

“We want to show the industry that joint efforts actually make a difference, especially in times like these,” she says, adding that she’s confident that the cooperation is for the long haul, on both parties’ accounts.

Project director Einar Kvalheim at Norway Trade Fairs is very pleased with the arrangement, which has been a give-and-take process, too.

“The HSMAI has positioned itself with the Meeting Exchange, a market channel which increasingly has become an important element with regards to corporate travel services, whereas the Norway International Travel and Meeting Fair B2B is a well-established arena for the domestic and the international travel industry. In joining forces I believe we’ll both have a better product,” he concludes.

Top photo: Norway Trade Fairs at Lillestrøm near Oslo. Photographer: Ole Petter Opøien.

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