Preparing for HSMAI European Travel Awards

The HSMAI European Travel Awards is being held for the first time ever on Thursday 5 May next year, according to the weekly letter (in Norwegian) from Ingunn Hofseth, president and CEO, HSMAI Division Europe and Chapter Norway. The event will be taking place in London, but the exact venue is yet to be decided, as we understand.

“You should however reserve the day already,” Ms Hofseth underlines, making a point of the event’s long overdue premiere. “HSMAI is prepared to refocus on pan European activities, and for the first time in HSMAI’s 80-year history, there will be a European competition and awards night, featuring representatives from the travel and hospitality industry throughout Europe, with a daytime conference to accompany the event”, Ms Hofseth, recently returned from the U.S. HSMAI Adrian Awards, says.

The European president and CEO will be taking up residence in London shortly, both in preparation of the upcoming event, but also the pan European activities for the next couple of years, including:

2010

• HSMAI Lodging Chief Marketing Officer Roundtable Conference in London
• Consolidate and develop the level of activities in national chapters
• Special Interest Groups Revenue Management and Travel Internet Marketing
• Revenue Management Certification programme
• Webinars
• A digital European magazine; European Marketing Review, four times a year
• European Advisory Board meeting, twice a year
• Starting up chapters in new markets

2011

• HSMAI Roundtable Conference in London Thursday 5 May 2011
• HSMAI European Travel Award, the evening of Thursday 5 May 2011
• Starting up chapters in new markets

“Also, I’m happy to announce that American Express Global has signed up as official HSMAI Europe sponsor, with new sponsors in the pipeline, to be announced as new activities are unveiled,” Ingunn Hofseth informs.

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