Author: Charlotte Gill

World class cars, world class meetings

Posted on by Charlotte Gill

Audi has developed its stylish flagship venue in West London with the same precision and dedication that goes into building every individual Audi car. Launched in 2009 to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the high performance all wheel drive ‘quattro’ car, the Audi quattro rooms bear the same name to symbolise the car manufacturer’s global success.

Perfectly situated along the M4 corridor and on the outskirts of Chiswick, the Audi quattro rooms offer easy access from Heathrow Airport and underground and main line train stations. Personal service is of the utmost importance and that is why Audi has chosen to make an executive fleet of their own cars available to collect board members, Directors and delegates from the airport, nearby stations, hotels, the City or other locations on request.

The success of the Audi quattro rooms can be directly linked to the use of the same attention to detail, intelligent design and sophisticated luxury expected from the Audi brand. Specially designed to offer a flexible and dynamic atmosphere, the inspirational venue is easily transformed to suit any occasion from business meetings to exclusive events.

Create and motivate
Integrating over 2000m² of creative space, three board rooms, three meeting rooms and a private screening room, seven different meetings can be accommodated simultaneously. All areas are also available individually or the entire venue is offered exclusively for up to 340 guests.

Striking glass walled meeting and board rooms, named after international racing circuits and Audi concept cars, provide a stimulating environment for intimate meetings, break out sessions and training events. Creative space with stylish Fritz Hansen seating surrounding the formal board rooms offers an informal setting for business discussions and relaxed meetings.

The location of the Audi quattro rooms means the venue is the perfect choice to bring together colleagues and delegates from around the world. Those based in the city and further a field nationally have easy access by road and rail and the proximity of Heathrow means additional international guests can be flown in with the assurance of a venue close the airport and a dedicated chauffeur to get them there.

Inspire and integrate
The very nature of the design of the Audi quattro rooms means the entire 2000m² of architectural space can be used for larger scale conferences and presentations taking advantage of the very latest integrated technological advancements from the world renowned brand, Bang & Olufsen.

Delegates are invited to share the Audi experience via the exclusive collection of vintage, rally and racing cars which creates an inspirational backdrop. The cars are rotated on a regular basis, and guests are welcome to wander freely among award winning models which can include the quattro, a Le Mans winner or the classic Wanderer.

Reconfiguring the display to suit your event requirements is handled in a quick and seamless manner.

Impress and engage
Boasting a 103-inch Bang & Olufsen screen and surround sound with touch screen technology as well as full blackout and unrivalled acoustics, the Audi Lounge is undoubtedly the ultimate in screening facilities. Each and every area of the room has been expertly designed to mirror the sophistication and elegance of Audi.

Furnished with deeply indulgent and relaxing lounge seating and a contemporary bar, it is available for exclusive private screenings, product launches and receptions. Flexibility is key; the Audi Lounge can be configured as theatre or cabaret style for more formal presentations.

Entertain with style
The Audi quattro rooms offer a stylish alternative for post business meeting or conference receptions or entertaining on a completely separate occasion. The exclusive surroundings coupled with exquisite cuisine and first class production ensure that formal dinners, receptions, product launches and fashion shows are a spectacular occasion. At night the far reaching views across London create an ambient atmosphere.

Savour and support
The Audi quattro rooms work alongside some of the industry’s finest event caterers and suppliers to provide the best cuisine, production, entertainment and floral design. Coupled with the enthusiastic and passionate venue management team who offer professional expertise and a personal service, meetings and events at the Audi quattro rooms are a luxurious and memorable experience.

And with the added extra of a private chauffeur driven transfer to help guests make their way home or to the airport at the end of their event, the Audi quattro rooms is guaranteed to leave visitors with the same feeling of comfort and indulgence expected when stepping into an Audi car.

And in Piccadilly too …
The Audi quattro rooms also has a sister venue in Piccadilly located directly opposite The Ritz and adjacent to Green Park underground station. Perfectly situated in the heart of London’s West End the central London venue is ideal for smaller meetings and more intimate events. Offering the same impeccable service, the venue in Piccadilly is available for evening events and day time meetings accommodating up to 200 for a reception and 18 for a board room meeting.

Audi quattro rooms: tel: +44 (0) 20 8326 1810; email: audiquattrorooms@audi.co.uk;
www.audiquattrorooms.co.uk

Yo amo Madrid

Posted on by Charlotte Gill

The capital city of Spain is often overlooked in favour of its coastal cousin Barcelona – but with its colourful nightlife, world class galleries and fantastic restaurants Madrid should not be missed.

The city still feels very Spanish and retains its own identity rather than feeling as though it is awash with tourists and international business. Away from the main squares it’s easy to find yourself in a traditional bar, practising your Spanish and eating delicious tapas with your beer. The tapas in Madrid is a real revelation as it is completely free with every drink you buy.  From bowls of paella, to tortilla, to brushetta – you just know that a packet of crisps and some peanuts really won’t cut it next time you’re in the pub!

If you can drag yourself away from the bars and the tapas there are also some excellent restaurants in the city. Madrid is located right in the centre of Spain, which gives the city access to the finest regional produce across the country. From the best cured hams and meats, to delectable cheeses and flavoursome peasant dishes with a modern twist, eating out in the city is a real treat.

One thing to note in Madrid is that they seem to operate a few hours later than the rest of the world and survive with very little sleep. Lunch seems to finish at about three and dinner doesn’t start until nine, which means if you plan to hit a few bars and then a club afterwards you won’t be getting home much before 5am. There are plenty of bars and clubs to choose from whether you’re into indie or house music or simply want to sip cocktails in the latest hangout.
On the way home make sure that you indulge in some late night fast food Madrid style. Locals don’t get a kebab on the way home instead they go to the Chocolatería San Gines to pick up churros (a type of battered dough) to dip into a devilishly thick hot chocolate.

Culture vultures will have plenty to keep them occupied during their time in Madrid as the city boasts some of the finest art collections in the world. The Prado is the most famous of the galleries and includes collections from the Spanish greats; Goya, Velázquez and El Greco. The gallery also has an impressive collection of Medieval and Renaissance works from the likes of Fra Angelico and Titian.

Other historical sites to see include the Palacio Real or The Royal Palace which is open to the public and also has a stunning view over the canal and a visit to the Plaza Mayor, Madrid’s central square. The Reina Sofia gallery should also be on the list as it houses one of Picasso’s most iconic paintings Guernica.

Madrid is not only a great place to visit for a short stay it is also the ideal place to start a longer trip. The city has excellent transport connections to the rest of the country via coach or train. Or if you are feeling really adventurous why not stop off in Madrid on the way to South America?

Air Europa flies direct from London Gatwick to Madrid twice daily from just £46.70 one way. From there you can take connecting flights to the rest of Spain, The Balearics and The Canaries or you can fly to South America, The Caribbean or the USA. Air Europa offers flights to Buenos Aires from London Gatwick via Madrid from £609.10 return, while flights to Caracas start from £516.50 return. As a scheduled airline economy flights include great extras such as an ample 23kg of baggage per person. The airline also has one of the world’s most modern fleet of planes.

For more information go to www.aireuropa.com or call Air Europa’s reservation team on 0871 423 0717 for a personalised service and instant seat confirmation.

15 minutes of fame

Posted on by Charlotte Gill

With more than 200 galleries and more moving in all the time, Chelsea has long superseded expensive SoHo as New York’s buzzing centre for contemporary art. But has the area lost its edge to commercial opulence, or will it maintain its youthful and creative flare?

Much like London’s East End, Chelsea’s rebirth as centre for uber-cool art occurred in the 90s. This was brought with the arrival of a new generation of creative talent seeking cheap space within areas of former industrial decay.

With it came all the trimmings; trendy bars, exclusive fashion outlets and some damn fine New York cuisine. So more than a decade later, news that this area is an overflowing helicon of inspiration is nothing new – and now that word has gotten out about this lucrative gem it seems everyone wants a piece of the pie.

A walk along 10th Avenue opens the floodgates to a host of very pristine-looking galleries with clean-cut glass fronts and metal staircases. You’d be forgiven for wondering into a building clad with alluring, semi-genuine street art only to be slightly embarrassed that it’s an upmarket clothes store. There are some very big players here, and it’s all very impressive; all very expensive. The numerous white cubes that adorn the streets of Chelsea seem to have dissolved much of the raw pioneering spirit of the early days. If you’re attempting to put a price on urban cool, credibility is an asset that might cross your mind.

But much of the art is still edgy and innovative, with some fine examples of sculpture and installation to be sampled from cutting edge artists. Marc Newson has been stunning crowds at the Gagosian gallery with his life-sized futuristic vehicles while the frantic sculptures of Judy Pfaff in the Ameringer Yohe gallery look as though they have been assembled by an angry poltergeist. The likes of Damien Hurst, Banksy and famous Lego sculptor Nathan Sawaya have all graced these hallowed streets over the years and the influx of high profile artists in high profile spaces looks set to continue.

The seemingly endless rows of galleries also provide a platform for younger and less well established artists. Many of whom seem to point to a close-knit art scene where excessive and ‘real’ art are exhaustively pursued within the cultural melting pot that is New York City.

There is an air of maturity about Chelsea and the galleries that have grown up around it, just as you would find in areas that had experienced a wild youth such as Carnaby Street in London. This is not just a creative hub, it is also the home of some serious and increasingly lucrative real estate where art is big business and art dealers stand to make even bigger profits. There’s certainly money to be made – even in time of financial uncertainty. London-based Art Market Research recently indicated that despite turmoil in world economies the prices of the closely watched top two per cent of contemporary art looks set to rise by up to 72 percent. Everywhere you turn there’s a new luxury development squashed between seemingly identikit converted warehouses. Whether it’s the erratically lined tower designed by Jean Nouvel or the ICM building by award winning architect Frank Gehry, Chelsea is buzzing and art has paid its way.

But Chelsea is in danger of becoming a victim of its own success. Soaring rent prices attributed to the increasing popularity of the area coupled with the recession could drive out the very creative force that brought the area to recent notoriety. One can’t help notice the apparently cyclical nature of creative spaces from innovation, to gentrification and fall from grace. A 2009 survey of 1,000 artists conducted by the New York Foundation for the Arts found that 43 percent expected their annual income to drop by between 26 and 50 percent in the following six months and that 11 percent believed that they would have to leave the city altogether within the same time frame.

Elsewhere the renowned Chelsea Art Museum has faced persistent financial uncertainty. While its presence cemented Chelsea as a top destination of contemporary art, the struggle by owner Dorthea Keeser to pay the mortgage on the 30,000sq ft venue typifies the ongoing struggle to finance quality artwork in an increasingly exclusive market.

Help is however at hand, and there are a number of organisations in Chelsea that are dedicated to preserving the area’s creative talent pool. Cue Foundation is a non-profit body designed to promote and encourage young artists.

Established in 2003, Cue not only provides a physical space and practical aid for budding talent, but also a community which allows it to incubate. To date around 60 artists and collectives have been provided with solo exhibitions at CUE, and a similar number of writers and curators have been selected to support them. Six hundred public schools also participate in the organisation’s education exercises, helping the arts to maintain a strong foothold in the city.

New York remains unique in the global art world where cash seems to flow freely among seemingly innocuous reputations, as one commenter pointed out: “I’m still amazed that we live like this, that people plunk down forty thousand dollars for a painting by someone who only a few hundred people have heard of. What could be more fantastic?”

Chelsea’s continued dominance in the wider New York art scene is by no means certain, but the city as a whole seems to be doing a pretty good job if maintaining a solvent creative economy. If history has taught us anything, it’s that each generation will write their own destiny. Virtually non-existent as a cultural hot spot five years ago and now described as a ‘lab for new art’, around a dozen galleries have opened their doors in the Lower East Side. Enticed by cheaper rents and that edgy allure, it’s a candidate that could topple Chelsea’s place as the jewel of the New York art world. Gallery owners have reason to watch their back, after all what could be more fleeting than the allure of cool and the wealth that stalks it?

Blowing hot and cold

Posted on by Charlotte Gill

The last of the European countries to be colonised, Norsemen mainly from Norway, Scandinavia and the British Isles came to Iceland during the 9th and 10th Centuries. In fact, archaeologists believe that Iceland may have had a more chequered past than previously thought.

In November 2010 research on the ancestry of an Icelandic family identified that the first Americans could have arrived in Europe five centuries before Columbus’s first voyage of discovery in 1492. It is now believed that women from the Americas arrived in Iceland 1,000 years ago, probably brought back by Vikings, and left behind genes that are reflected in around 80 Icelanders today.

The country was largely isolated from the 10th Century onward, and this has allowed Iceland’s unique and independent culture to develop. Myth and folklore form a vital part of oral tradition (80 percent of Icelanders refuse to rule out the existence of elves) and the medieval “Sagas of Icelanders” written in the 12th and 13th Centuries are considered an outstanding contribution to world literature. Iceland’s most famous modern writer is Halldor Laxness, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1955 for his works documenting life in the country. A new wave of artists also emerged during the 20th century, all of whom captured aspects of everyday Icelandic life from landscape painters such as Johannes Kjarval who is noted for his efforts to capture volcanic rock and the abstract and cubist inspired works of Gunnlaugur Scheving. Check out the National Gallery of Iceland for a warm introduction into some of the country’s most important works and the The Reykjavik Art Museum for a showcase of contemporary artists.

For a further chance to brush up on your Nordic history, pay a visit to Iceland’s family friendly National Museum.

The permanent exhibition called Making of Nation – Heritage and History Iceland provides an informative look at the history of the island from settlement in the Ninth Century up until the present day.

Hot springs
Famed and revered for their healing properties for everything from migraines to depression and stress, Iceland is blessed with a vast array of hot springs. The island’s ceaseless volcanic activity and freezing waters from its glacier-laden surface result in a gloriously hot mineral-rich soak with over 800 springs sizzling at an average temperature of 7oC. Although taking your clothes off may seem like a daunting task in this frozen climate, the cold only adds to the joy of plunging into the steaming water for a delightfully juxtaposed experience while you admire the pristine landscape.

Check out Lake Laugarvatn, or Warm Springs Lake about 20km east of Thingvelli. Warm enough for bathing, these waters are naturally heated by geothermal vents to the north of the lake. A bathhouse is located at the edge and provides towel rental and showers all year round while a small entrance fee also gains you into a natural indoor steam bath heated by another hissing-hot spring.

If you’re looking for something a bit more off the beaten track, travel to Landmannalaugar hot springs. Lying 600 metres above sea level, this area comprises the largest geothermal field in Iceland and is surrounded by craggy rhyolite peaks and black lava fields. Although these can make for tricky driving and luxuries become sparse, it’s well worth the trek.

Weird and wonderful cuisine
A harsh climate and limited supplies meant that settlers put much effort into preserving their food, resulting in the evolution of a bizarre range of smoked and dried traditional delicacies. For those with a strong constitution, Hakari, or rotted shark is a pungent and slightly dubious dish that tastes like a mixture of dodgy fish and French cheese. This is prepared by burying the meat in sand for six months, and as you’d imagine is quite the acquired taste.

But if for some strange reason you’d like your travels to be less of an extreme taste challenge, never fear. Modern culinary delights are never far away – and many Icelandics will be eager to usher you toward the bright lights of Reykjavik for one of the many world-class restaurants on offer. The stylish Brauðbær Restaurant located in the Óðinsvé Hotel offers delicious seasonal local produce inspired by European cuisine. Leg of lamb with Icelandic cheese and mustard sauce or salted cod bacalao served with sweet rutabaga and lime scented butter are among the favourites. Seafood will always be close to the heart of Icelandic culture, and the Sjavarkjallarinn Seafod Cellar is regarded as one of the top restaurants. Award winning chef Stein Oskar Sigurdsson serves delightful fusion recipes including curried mussels, traditional smoked lamb and lobster. It’s also worth noting that tipping is a distinct faux pa in Iceland.

Festivals and nightlife
Cold weather and long nights certainly haven’t gotten the population down and there are a plethora of festivals and nightlife to while away the wee hours. The Winter Lights Festival based in Laugardalur Park runs throughout February and mixes and exciting programme of art, sport, culture and history. Many of Reykjavik’s galleries, clubs and associations take part to offer performances, exhibitions and lavish parties throughout the city.

Beer Day on 1 March pays homage to Iceland’s tumultuous relationship with alcohol and remembers the relatively recent abolition of prohibition in 1989. Presumably making up for lost time, locals indulge in a beer spree and highly festive celebrations long into the night. The Government is however reported to have strongly resisted calls for a National Hangover Day on 2 March.

Hedonistic Reykjavik has built up a reputation for its club scene over the years and has become a major hub for European revellers seeking the next big high. There are an astonishing number of wild and high-profile venues that rock right throughout the night. Frequent queues grace the entrance to the upmarket Rex; a meeting place of capital’s high-flyers including Björk and Eidur Gudjohnsen, while other popular cafes/bars include the large dance floor of Mediterranean style Café Oliver and the close by Vegamot bar.

For a more strenuous night on the town, the impressive NASA night club packs on the crowds with disco and house music over three floors and also has live bands earlier in the evening. The venue’s small stage also hosts some of the best musical performances in the country and is the best place to sample some local Jazz or traditional folk music for that authentic Icelandic experience.

From Russia with love

Posted on by Charlotte Gill

Boasting landmark status, this historic hotel combines opulent guest rooms with impressive business and leisure facilities, and has recently scooped the title of Russia’s Leading Luxury Hotel 2010 at the World Travel Awards.

Formerly known as ‘Hotel Ukraina’, the hotel soars 206m high and occupies a monumental building that forms part of the legendary ‘Seven Sisters’ skyscraper project masterminded by Stalin as a showcase of Soviet Neo-classical architecture. A team of top designers, architects and technicians has meticulously restored the hotel’s exterior and interior, paying homage to the building’s illustrious past as the largest European hotel of its day.

Enjoying a prime city centre location, the Radisson Royal Hotel, Moscow is the epitome of luxury with its 505 elegant guest rooms and suites, 38 serviced apartments, original art collection, lavish on-site spa, gourmet dining and high-tech conferencing facilities. The hotel features free high-speed Internet access throughout, and is equipped with elegant furniture and accessories from worldwide leading brands including Baker, Provasi, Florence Art, Citterio, Villeroy & Boch, Penhaligon’s and Etro.

A commitment to luxury
At the World Travel Awards in October 2010, the Radisson Royal Hotel, Moscow was named the best luxury hotel in Russia. Considered the top accolade for a tourism business, the World Travel Awards recognise innovation and are judged by professionals representing 183,000 travel and tourism organisations from 160 countries. After receiving the award, the hotel’s General Manager Wolfgang Nitschke said, “For us, luxury means attention to every detail, it means fulfilling all our promises to our guests, and anticipating their every desire. It is above all a general impression, the ambience of the hotel, and we are proud that our efforts have been recognised with such an award”.

Conferencing facilities
The Radisson Royal Hotel, Moscow is particularly popular with business travellers thanks to its central location on the Moskva River in close proximity to key administrative, business, leisure and tourist venues. Meeting planners can look forward to the hotel’s winning fusion of sumptuous meeting facilities, the latest technology and professional service standards. Ideal for hosting board meetings to large conferences, the hotel’s five versatile meeting rooms and two 450m² conference and banqueting halls are complemented by spacious pre-function areas, a business centre and a large library. The entire conferencing facility can accommodate 1,000 delegates. Moscow offers meeting planners a wealth of incentive opportunities and one such activity not to be missed is a boat trip on the Moskva River on one of the Radisson Royal Hotel’s high-end cruise liners – the perfect way to take in Moscow’s most picturesque sights and enjoy fine dining.

Lavish surroundings
Art lovers will be in for a treat at the hotel, which is home to over 1,200 original works by Russian artists created in the first half of the last century. After a busy day of meetings, the 3,500m² health and fitness centre makes a relaxing oasis with its spa, thermal baths, 50m heated indoor pool, well-equipped gym and treatment rooms. The hotel offers some of the best restaurants in town and guests will be tempted with the flavours of contemporary Mediterranean cuisine, classic international dishes, innovative fusion cuisine, Italian specialties, and exotic Iranian menus, not to mention sophisticated Japanese delicacies.

The Radisson Royal Hotel, Moscow promises guests a luxurious stay in a property steeped in history.

For further information, contact the Radisson Royal Hotel, Moscow at +7 (495) 221 5555/ info.royal.moscow@radisson-hotels.ru, www.radisson.ru/royalhotel-moscow

Dream vacations

Posted on by Charlotte Gill

Dohop’s flight search is renowned for finding cheap flights where other websites come up short. A unique ability to connect low-cost airlines with conventional carriers saves you money and makes connections not found anywhere else. This helps you get to that meeting in Hot springs, Arizona or find that perfect vacation for your family.

Hotels worth sleeping in
Dohop recently announced a strategic partnership with HotelsCombined.com, which will power its hotel search function, providing you with the best tools to find that perfect hotel for the family or a hotel that’s all business. From high-speed wireless to dry cleaning services, Dohop’s hotel search automatically compares exactly thirty hotel providers such as Hotels.com, Expedia, Hilton and many more, to find the very best price available on every single room offered.

Better smelling rental cars
When it comes to rental cars, Dohop has a long standing relationship with top Irish firm CarTrawler. They provide the search function, bookings, and customer service for all of Dohop’s rental cars, aggregating thousands of providers across tens of thousands of locations worldwide. It is not unusual to find up to 50 percent lower prices in Dohop’s car rental search. And of course, finer vehicles for the distinguished person are always available.

Enough left over for some luxury
Once you’ve planned your vacation (saving money on the flight, the hotel, and the rental car) you’ll have enough left over to treat your entire family to some of the holiday luxuries you’ve always wanted. Why not send the kids to an all-inclusive theme park, with a babysitter of course, while the parents enjoy a nice relaxing spa day, full of manicures, cocktails, and hot stone massages?

For all your business travel needs
As the experienced business traveller knows, business travel is usually not something described as simple and easy. Planning, booking, changing, and putting together an itemized expense report after a grueling round of meetings is probably not your idea of fun. But with Dohop’s new business travel planning tool, SHERPA, everything becomes so much easier.

For more information on Dohop, visit www.dohop.com. If you’re involved in business travel and want to learn about SHERPA, check out: www.dohop.com/sherpa

An easy lunch

Posted on by Charlotte Gill

I’ve browsed and sluiced with the best of them at haute cuisine establishments from Cape Town to Cairo, from Sydney to San Francisco. Good food and fine wine makes living well the best revenge, as the cliché goes.

Nothing like a chilled bottle of Bollinger, cold lobster, and giant prawns with real mayonnaise to round off the day, or a glass or two of good Bordeaux and an impeccably cooked sirloin to help one sleep the sleep of the just.

No killjoy puritan I. Been there, done that, got the large Amex bills and the extra chin to prove it.

So like a war hero turned pacifist I feel I have the most impeccable credentials to stand up and boldly claim:
“The business lunch when travelling is the worst thing that can be inflicted on both the traveller and the business he or she is in.”

Don’t choke on that canapé; don’t spit out the Pouilly Fuisse, just calm down and listen. Firstly I agree with rogue Sun editor Kelvin Mackenzie who once claimed it was the long lunch that was turning Britain into a Third World nation.

Lunch is the most unnecessary of meals, and when taken on business trips it’s positively harmful. First off, let’s be frank with one another here. We may occasionally march into some exotic city’s restaurant at one o’clock, full of self-importance thinking, ‘I’m abroad, having lunch. How good is that?” But in truth we know that anything said here as we plough through three or more courses washed down with a couple of bottles, can just as easily be discussed in a memo, an e-mail or even a telephone call.

And we also know that after a long lunch while abroad on business no-one is fit for anything more than a prolonged snoring snooze fest for the rest of the day.

When you’ve got different time zones and jet lag, disorientation, perhaps a sleepless night on a plane behind you, a premature lunch can spell disaster. I once landed in Hong Kong at around 11 am. Hong Kong being eight hours ahead it was 3 am in my brain, I’d slept fitfully but just polished off a hearty airborne breakfast, trying to ease myself into the new time zone.

After leaving Customs I was immediately ferried to a Tsimshatsui restaurant for an impromptu Chinese banquet with my clients. Still reeling with aeroplane motion memory, I was suddenly faced with 1,000 year old eggs; birds nest soup, stewed eel, grilled python, Singapore noodles, curried duck, five different kinds of rice, squid, abalone and worse – endless toasts drunk from enormous tumblers brimming with Remy Martin brandy.

To not eat would be to lose face for my Chinese clients and myself. But what I did lose later that afternoon was the ill-digested contents of my stomach, and was ill for hours. Had these people no imagination? Couldn’t they see I wouldn’t remotely want masses of food an hour after stepping off an 11 hour flight? And the business I’d travelled there to discuss with them? Hardly mentioned, we dealt with it all in the boardroom two days later.
I once took an inaugural Alitalia flight from Tokyo to Rome via Moscow and Frankfurt. When I arrived I didn’t know if it was morning, noon, Saturday or April Fools’ Day, but was immediately rushed off to have a pre-arranged complimentary lunch with the manager of Rome’s Monopole Hotel.

We had six courses accompanied by various Chianti Classicos, and ended with a zabaglione washed down with the dessert wine Lagrima Christi. It means tears of Christ, but without wishing to be blasphemous, the tears were all mine as I forced myself to plough through the lunch. Imagine being woken from a deep sleep at – say 5am on a winter morning – and then force fed ravioli, risotto, veal escalope and constantly having a full wine glass pushed into your face, and you’ll know how I felt. Nauseous again.

The lunch, the wine, the jet-lag, all combined to eventually knock me out so soundly that not even the bedside telephone woke me for a reception that evening.

So let’s stop pretending. Unless it’s the equivalent of a prêt-a-manger brie and cranberry sauce sandwich and a café latte, we don’t need the foreign business lunch. It’s expensive, unnecessary and ruinous to our gastric systems and ultimately our expanding waist lines.

In America when they describe someone as “out to lunch” it means they’re not fully compos mentis. They’re not far wrong.

A quick guide to sushi

Posted on by Charlotte Gill

The term sushi does not in fact refer to raw fish, but to vinegared rice served with various fillings and toppings, which may include raw fish. With this in mind, sushi in some form has existed for more than two thousand years, although the dish of those days does not bear much resemblance to the modern cuisine.

What has developed into a culinary art in modern times actually began rather more humbly. Its origins can be dated back to the Seventh Century when Southeast Asians introduced a method pickling for preservation. This involved packing fish with rice and utilising fermentation to cause the pressed fish to pickle, a process known as nare-zushi.

This process could take up to one year to complete and meant that the rice portion of the dish was discarded upon consumption. Nare-zushi can subsequently be seen as the precursor to the modern dish.

The 16th Century saw the further development of sushi perhaps more recognisable to us today. A variant of the pickling process called namanare-zushi was developed and introduced the idea of using vinegared rice, which was consumed instead of being thrown away. It was also the first to utilise raw fish compressed into a mould and can be seen as the main precursor to the modern dish. This cuisine is in fact still alive and well today and can be sampled in Japan’s ancient capital, Kyoto.

It was however in the 1820s that Hanaya Yohei of Edo (the old name of Tokyo) developed the dish most similar to what we are served today. The serving of sashimi (sliced raw fish) with rice from a stall direct to customers marked an important sociological step in the dishes place in Japan’s culture and it was from here that sushi became a popular fast-food among Japanese.

The 20th century saw an explosion in the global popularity of sushi, buoyed by its healthy reputation and artistic presentation.  The most common forms now include Nigiri Sushi, (hand shaped sushi), Oshi-Sushi (pressed sushi), Maki-Sushi (rolled sushi) and Chirashi Sushi (scattered sushi). Now regarded as a culinary expertise, some chefs train for up to ten years to become an Itamae-San (expert chef); although increasing demand for has meant that many train for just a few years.

Where to eat
Ginza Kyubei, 8-7-6 Ginza, Chuo-ku, Tokyo
Luxuriously set on three floors in the central business district, Ginza Kyubei has been setting the standard for fine dining in Tokyo for years, making it one of the grandest and most prestigious sushi restaurant in the city. Revered for innovation, chefs here are credited with inventing  gunkan-maki, the wraparound technique for serving fish roe.

Sukiyabashi Jiro, 2-15, Ginza 4-chome, Chuo-ku, Tokyo
Old master and head chef Jiro Ono is fast approaching 80, but his restaurant shows little sign of waning in popularity, boasting Joel Robuchon, the world’s most decorated chef, as a regular and three Michelin stars. Be sure to try the Japanese horse mackerel, amberjack and Hokkaido sea urchin.

Daiwa Sushi, Tsukiji Fish Market, Tokyo
Located slap bang in the middle of the fish market, Daiwa Sushi offers some of the freshest cuts in the city. It’s worth getting here early as it tends to become very congested with the clamour to get the first catch of the day, but this proximity means some of the cheapest sushi in town is on offer; with a platter costing less than half the price of the downtown equivalent.

No time like the present

Posted on by Charlotte Gill

To many, disruption is a bad word – particularly in the travel industry. Disruption means delays and cancellations, wrong bookings, and random events driving the entire system into chaos.

At the Association of Corporate Travel Executives (ACTE), however, we don’t quite see disruption that way. We look at disruptions as opportunities – opportunities to learn, adapt, and grow; opportunities to create something new; and opportunities to redefine what is considered the norm.

To us, disruption, while initially chaotic and confusion, is a real opportunity to become better.

And, while the travel industry likes to think that it doesn’t handle disruption particularly well, few industries have actually dealt with disruptions as effectively and with as much courage and conviction as travel.

Look at the last ten years as an example. From the horrific terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001; to the increase in the cost of oil from US$30 in 2003 to a peak of US$147 in 2008; to the financial crises of 2008 and 2009, this decade has been a long one for travel.

Yet, the industry is still here and, as of late October, all signs pointed towards continued, steady growth through 2011.
More importantly, however, than how the travel industry handled these negative disruptions, is how effectively it has handled positive disruptions, as well.

The mid-1990’s saw the creation of the World Wide Web, as we have come to know it, and while it can never be stated how much of a disruption this was (and remains), what is impressive is just how quickly and effectively the travel industry was able to put it to use.

In 1993, a team of programmers led by Marc Andreesen at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign developed a graphical web browser called Mosaic that would essentially become the founding father of today’s web browsers (from the former Netscape Navigator to Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Chrome, Opera, and others).

By 1996 (only three years later), consumers were already booking travel online and less than 15 years later, online travel has grown into nearly a $100bn industry.

Clearly, travel has the ability to take a disruption and run with it, reshaping not just itself, but also large facets of the general economy and culture.

But, while travel, as a whole, embraced and continues to embrace these disruptions, business travel lags behind, operating on strategies mostly devised and developed around the same time as Andreesen and his team were setting the stage for today’s concept of the Internet. The tools may have changed, but these strategies remain mostly the same. We are still making trip decisions based on historical – not real-time – data.

For example, let’s suppose that my company is based in London, my largest customer is in New York, and last year I had 13 trips between that city pair. Using today’s strategies, my company’s travel manager would negotiate air and hotel rates around those 13 trips between New York and London – using that historical data.
But, what if that travel was, instead, booked around real-time data?

What if next week my contact is going to be in Paris? Wouldn’t it make more sense for me to meet her there? I could take the train, or at least a shorter flight – rather than the long-haul intercontinental trip from London to New York. Or, how about if next month I’m in San Diego around the same time that she’s in Los Angeles? It would probably be better for me to take a quick flight to Los Angeles and meet her there, rather than schedule another trip from London to New York the following week.

Suddenly, those 13 trips I took last year between London and New York aren’t very good pieces of data.
Jason Fried of 37Signals, the maker of the popular Basecamp software, always says that the best data is the data you have right now – not the data you had last year and not the data you think you’re going to have next month. So, naturally, the best business decisions are made in the present – not the past or the future.

Wouldn’t business travel be so much more efficient if it worked the same way? The disruption of social networks like Facebook and Twitter, crowd sourcing like Wikipedia and TripAdvisor, and travel tools like TripIt and FlightCaster make this scenario a possibility.

With this sort of buying, would the industry still need the same magnitude of corporate pricing and negotiated programs beyond only the most frequented destinations? How much time and energy would that save, cutting back on the give-and-take between buyer and supplier? Imagine allowing market forces, coupled with personal circumstances, to drive buying behavior that genuinely does create the proverbial win-win scenario.

This is just one example of the type of disruption possible in the business travel industry. As technology continues to grow and improve, buying strategies also need to adapt in accordance with the technology’s capabilities – just like travel did with the creation of the graphical web browser nearly two decades ago.

This is why ACTE’s motto is, “Be Smart. Be Hip. Be Seen.”

Be smart. We want business travel industry professionals to pursue new knowledge to help them adapt to these disruptions and, in 2011, ACTE will take its educational offerings to new heights by adding an initiative called Around the World in 80 Hours, which is designed to bring students, travel buyers, and other executives to the markets they are most interested in – and for real educational credit through local Universities. Additionally, we are launching an Index that will let travel departments benchmark against other leading programmes on a monthly basis.
Be Hip. ACTE members, attendees, and sponsors have always been the “in” crowd – but in 2011, we want to push that further. We want our stakeholders to be on the leading edge of the industry, driving its future and growth by embracing disruptions. So, we are instituting a few additional initiatives to push that forward, including an Angel Investor Lounge, designed to bring together the best ideas in travel with the key investors who can help bring those ideas to life, and a new honor called 3 Under 33, which will showcase the leading young minds in business travel around the world at each of our conferences next year.

Be Seen. While most professionals may associate ACTE primarily with its educational content, our networking opportunities at all of our events and through our membership is just as important – bringing together the top key executives from around the world. 2011 will offer even new ways for our stakeholders to meet, talk, and get things done, including a partnership with Business Travel Market, which will reshape ACTE’s already successful TransACTE into InterACTE, and a Consultants Corner, where ACTE will offer certification to the industry’s leading consultants, providing them with greater visibility to help match them up with organisations from all sectors of the industry.

To quote Bob Dylan, “The times, they are a-changin’,” and it is vital to the success of the travel industry to change with them. ACTE hopes to lead that change through its executive level education and networking into 2011 and beyond.

Going Dutch

Posted on by Charlotte Gill

It’s barely been five minutes and already an armada of bicycles is whizzing past me. Clearly I’m not in Kansas anymore, but in the Netherlands – a country that seems pleased as punch to do everything a little bit differently. And for good reason. Amidst a plethora of seemingly identikit European countries, the Netherlands feel fun and unique, as from its legal sex and drugs industry to the abundance of tulips on every corner, there is nothing ordinary about it.
And thus a journey of discovery begins.

Sex, drugs, bridges and bicycles
As the country’s largest city, Amsterdam is a great place to get started. It is located in Holland which, contrary to popular belief, accounts for just 13 percent of the entirety of the Netherlands, yet which also incorporates the major towns of Rotterdam and the Hague.

Amsterdam is arguably the most planned city in northern Europe and was the centre of world economy in the 17th century. Today it is a city of contrasts; trundle through it by day and you’d be forgiven for thinking you’d landed in toy town. Intricate and ornate, it is the optimum blend of old-meets-new, with striking modern constructions standing side-by-side with centuries-old homes on dinky cobbled streets. The good news is that most of the top sites are located within walking distance of one another, so it’s easy to pack numerous architectural gems into one day.

A Venetian aura is omnipresent too, with water and waterways providing much of the focus for daytime. A chug on one of the canal boats makes for an interesting alternative for business or pleasure, as nothing beats a board meeting on-board or a leisurely drift as you soak up your surroundings. The Magere Brug, a traditional double-leaf drawbridge, connects both sides of the Amstel River. The once ‘skinny’ bridge put on a few pounds in 1871 when it was preplaced by a heartier model that could better handle the traffic. Today it’s worth waiting out the twenty-minutes between lifts when the bridge masters let boats through, and the experience is especially magical at night.

There’s plenty of cultural history to get lost in too. For starters, the Van Gogh Museum houses some 200 paintings and 550 sketches by the native artist, making it the largest collection of his works in the world. It is accompanied by hundreds of letters that he wrote, as well as several artistic pieces by his friends and contemporaries; many happy hours can be spent meandering between colourful masterpieces. Meanwhile, it’s certainly an excellent place to immerse yourself in a Dutch dilemma as you debate on whether he did, or didn’t, chop his own ear off.

Another beloved attraction is Anne Frank’s House, located in the city’s core. Renowned as the space where the young teenager penned her bleak diary that offered a window onto her war torn world, it certainly leaves an unforgettable impression of what her existence must have been like. The original diary is on permanent display as a stark reminder.

Of course Amsterdam is anything but doom and gloom, and is notoriously renowned as one of the most hedonistic spots in Europe. After nightfall the innocence of toy town evaporates in an instant, only to be replaced by the city’s vibrant (and legal) sex and drugs world, which has morphed into a multi-million euro industry fuelled by tourists.
It is here that Amsterdam shows its true, raunchy colours. From brothels and stag dos to sex shops and museums, the Red Light District leaves nothing to the imagination. You’ll doubtlessly have heard about the working girls pressed up against their glass-fronted rooms, and the live sex shows that play out wildly and, to be honest, it is all completely true.

So throw your inhibitions to the wind and take comfort in the fact that this aspect of the city’s character has thrived since the 14th century. As the oldest profession in the world, the government chose to legalise prostitution in 2000 and all of the women vying for your attention are legislated, tax-paying members of society. Sure it is a fine line between shock tactics and rip-roaring good fun, but as you share the pavement with a gaggle of women on a hens’ night and a pack of men ogling at the array of what’s on offer, you might as well enjoy it.

So dive right in. Book a tour of the Red Light District via the local tourist information office, and head to the Erotic Museum to experience a different sort of education. Of course, if your boundaries are a little more limitless, there’s always the notorious Casa Rosso or the Bananenbar sex shows. Once that’s over with, you can head to on the one of the equally famed ‘Coffee Shops’ for a puff of legal pot and a mug of tasty Dutch beer.

Back in the cold light of day, hop on a bike to nurse that hangover. Cycling anywhere in the country is something of a obsession in these parts and the terrain is perfect for it. With a lack of parking spaces and the desire to be eco-chic, young locals wouldn’t be caught dead without their bike. In fact, they probably have at least two of them; resulting in a mammoth industry with nearly 1.3 million new bikes purchased every year.

You’ll find it easy to launch your own two-wheeled adventure as most train stations offer bike-hiring facilities. Cycling here is a pleasure thanks to constant supply of bike trails that keep you safe, and you can pedal on flat land for hours without breaking much of a sweat. Many of the trails lead through quaint cobblestone villages, each with their own fascinating history. Haarlem, a city located 21 kilometres from Amsterdam on the North Sea coastline, is well worth a visit. And if you’re around between the months of March and May, the renowned open-air Kuekenhof flower show is blooming marvellous, and annually captures the attention of top botanists and flower traders. After all, the country didn’t secure its reputation as a nation enveloped in tulips for nothing.

Meanwhile, keep your eyes peeled for windmills as you catapult along. Although they are another of the country’s clichés, they are still in practical use for drainage and milling purposes – although they are admittedly more of a tourist attraction these days.

Next port of call
If you fancy staying on the saddle for a little longer, you could choose to travel on two wheels to visit one of the world’s busiest working ports. Now, this could be Rotterdam, or anywhere… but, well, it is in fact Rotterdam, the Netherland’s second largest city.

Over the years the city grew from a humble fishing village on the banks of the River Nieuwe Mass into an international hub of transport, trade, industry and distribution. Sadly, Rotterdam lost much of its old-style architecture when it was bombarded early on in World War II, but it certainly hasn’t lost its charm. Today it looks a little different to the rest of the country, with towering skyscrapers and contemporary buildings on every street. Construction is a way of life here and shows no sign of slowing down, and with a population of over 600,000 it can’t really afford to.

Nevertheless it is a city with a very bright and cosmopolitan feel to it. The port, of course, is a must, as with a throughput of over 300 million metric tonnes every year, it is a sight to behold. Very in keeping is the interactive Maritime Museum with its impressive collection of over one million maritime objects including ship models, navigational instruments and furniture.

But there’s more to Rotterdam than just water-based endeavours; it is an extremely cultural city that has also worked to cultivate the fresh entrepreneurial spirit of its young residents. For instance, the Boijmans is the only museum in Holland to cover the 14th century to the present in one fabulous art collection, and you can expect everything from a delicate painting by one of the Old Masters, to a contemporary focus on industrial design.

Meanwhile, the Kunsthal Rotterdam presents culture in the wider sense of the word, with vibrant exhibitions that combine old art, new art, design and photography. The aura here is extremely experimental, and on any given day you can expect to find Leonardo da Vinci’s work mixed in with pop art and some strategically placed lingerie. Naturally, this extraordinary approach extends to the building itself, which is very much an attraction in its own right.

Not to be outdone by the capital, the nightlife in Rotterdam reflects its vibrant attitude too. Here late-night clubs, bars and chill-out lounges line the city’s attractive streets. Kop van Zuid, Delftshaven and Stadshuiplein are all areas particularly known for keeping energies high well into the early hours. Of particular interest is Watt, the world’s first sustainable dance club, which features water-saving toilets and a solar-powered roof lounge.

The spirit of compromise
Making up the trilogy of Holland’s main cities is the Hague. Once the Dutch capital, it has remained the seat of the country’s coalition government and the residence of its Queen. It is known as the ‘judicial capital of the world’, with numerous international courts located here, including the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice.

This is definitely the most serious of the three city sisters, but don’t let that detract from its historic, cultural and political pulls. Far removed from the relaxed waterways of many other Dutch cities, the Hague’s polished avenues give it a continental edge that’s echoed through its baroque and classicist-style buildings.

Meanwhile, in the stylish Statenkwartier district, the Vredespaleis is an icon to the country’s commitment to peace. Known as the Peace Palace, it was constructed in 1913 as a place where international disputes could be settled; ironically, World War I broke out just one year after it threw open its doors for the first time. Today it determinedly fulfils its destiny, as the International Court of Justice.

And there, in the halls of a building vying for peace, one can succinctly sum up the prevailing feeling that sticks with you after a visit to the Netherlands – one of compromise. From its coalition government and its progressive stance on many contentious issues, to its ability to combine a thriving sex and drugs industry with the picturesque atmosphere of dinky Amsterdam, you get the impression that the Netherlands really is out to please.

And in a marvellous flurry of art, history, bicycles and brothels, it succeeds.

Should I stay or should I go?

Posted on by Charlotte Gill

As one of Asia’s biggest investor draws for western companies, the political and economic affairs of Malaysia are always keenly examined, and growing speculation that Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak may opt for parliamentary polls nearly two years ahead of schedule is headline news.

Addressing the 61st general assembly of the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), the ruling party that he heads, on October 23rd, Najib gave “the clearest indication yet” that the 13th general election was imminent. As of now, the parliamentary poll is scheduled for March 2013.

Najib, who took over as the prime minister in April last year, told the party faithful “to get ready for it and to get into battle mode”. Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin was even more direct when he said that “it cannot be denied that the general election is just a few months away”. Newspapers based in Malaysia say that the party general assembly has been abuzz with talk that the elections could be held as early as July 2011.

Najib took over from Ahmed Abdullah Badawi, who quit after the party and the Barisan Nasional, the ruling alliance, fared badly, losing the traditional two-thirds parliamentary majority in March 2008 and control of four of the country’s 13 states. Multi-racial Malaysia is home to 2.1 million ethnic Indians who form eight percent of the country’s 28 million-strong population.

The ruling alliance, which includes a number of Indian-based parties, has had a victory run in recent by-elections. The opposition alliance, Pakatan Rakyat, led by former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim, is widely perceived as having lost ground, media reports have said. This may be due to the fact that Ibrahim remains a controversial figure.

Ten years after he was sacked from the deputy prime ministership in 1998 when he was tried and jailed on a charge of sodomy, he is currently on trial for another charge of sodomy which was brought against him last year. And analysts do not rule out violence if the court delivers a “contentious” verdict.

Political tensions spiked after the 2008 general election when unprecedented opposition gains transformed the political landscape. The National Front coalition’s 52-year grip on the country was dented when it ceded control of five states and lost its two-thirds parliamentary majority to an opposition led by Ibrahim. Since then, the political uncertainty has weighed on foreign investment with net portfolio and direct investment outflows reaching $61bn in 2008 and 2009 according to official data. While money has flowed into the bond market recently, according to central bank statistics, little has flowed into equities.

Another reason why foreign capital may have dried up is a perceived increase in public sector corruption. Malaysia used to be regarded as one of the region’s more reliable countries, but worsening corruption and a perceived lack of judicial independence have damaged investment. Malaysia’s corruption perception ranking dropped to a record low of 57th globally in anti-corruption body Transparency International’s 2009 report.

Other issues may include the country’s attitude towards minorities, especially as race and religion have always been explosive issues in Malaysian politics. While Najib took power pledging a more inclusive approach to ethnic Chinese and Indian minorities, some in his UMNO party are casting this approach aside in a bid to woo conservative Malays. The caning of three women under strict Islamic laws in February for having illicit sex signalled the government’s increasing adoption of a stronger Islamic agenda, and this has worried some investors. A heated row over the use of the word “Allah” by Catholics, which sparked attacks on religious establishments, is also threatening to prolong minority unhappiness with the government.

Government policy tries to strike a balance between the majority Malay Muslims and the country’s minority ethnic Chinese and Indians, but analysts suspect that forced spending cuts which are likely to target minorities are likely to increase racial tension. The government is trying to take measures to alleviate the problem. Najib told delegates that “a new mechanism” was needed to sustain relations as enshrined in the constitution so that they remain harmonious.

His government recently set up a special body called the “Bumiputra Agenda Supreme Council” to look after their economic interests. However, commentators point out that Bumiputra, or “the sons of the soil”, refers to the Malays, which may give an indication about which sections of Malay society may benefit from it.

Yet it is usually the state of a country’s finances and spending that often come back to haunt it, and Malaysia is no different. Government debt for 2009 rose to RM362.39bn or 53.7 percent of GDP, its highest level in five years, according to the country’s public sector spending watchdog, the Auditor-General. This is the first time the debt to GDP ratio had breached the 50 percent mark, largely due to domestic debt. “The debt ratio to GDP at the end of 2009 is 53.7 percent, the highest level in five years and over 50 percent for the very first time,” said its report.

Furthermore, the Auditor-General has found that a total of 109 projects undertaken by 24 ministries and departments overshot their budgets to a cumulative amount of RM527.43m. According to the Auditor-General’s report for 2009 released at the end of October, spending without an allocation, financial mismanagement and budget over-runs were “common” in various ministries and government departments. Based on the audit analysis, there were a total of 195 cases of weak financial management were detected in several ministries and departments. Furthermore, a total of 21 ministries and departments had also applied for emergency funds and additional costing amounting to RM62.2m despite there being a RM96.33m balance from their initial allocations remaining unspent.

Malaysia’s budget for 2011 has skipped structural reforms demanded by investors. Instead, the budget strategy relies on infrastructure spending and raising incomes to fuel economic growth ahead of polls expected next year. The budget plan targets a 2.8 percent rise in spending and aims to shrink the deficit to 5.4 percent of GDP next year from 5.6 percent this year thanks to sustained strong growth.

According to the plan, Southeast Asia’s third-largest economy is expected to grow between five and six percent in 2011 after a seven percent expansion this year and a 1.7 percent contraction in 2009. “The trend of external trade is increasingly challenging, while there is heightened competition to attract foreign investment,” Najib told parliament. “To rise to these challenges, the private sector must be dynamic, creative and innovative to drive economic growth,” he added.

To shift away from the governments significant role in driving economic growth since the financial crisis in 1997/98, the 2011 budget includes a number of important initiatives designed to spur private sector investment, estimated to expand in 2011 by 12.5 percent to RM86bn. Some projects include the Kuala Lumpur International Financial District (KLIFD) commencing in 2011, in collaboration with Mubadala Development Company, of the Government of Abu Dhabi, at a value of RM26 billion; the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) in Greater KL, beginning in 2011 with expected private investments of RM40bn, to be completed by 2020; and the Warisan Merdeka, an integrated development project comprising a 100-story tower, the tallest in Malaysia, to be completed by 2020 at a value of RM5bn.

Analysts believe that the budget is more likely to please voters than investors who are frustrated with the lack of progress in reforms of Malaysia’s subsidies and its race-based policies. “A majority of the big foreign investors will be unhappy with the budget if he doesn’t give them anything in terms of real money,” said James Chin, a professor at Monash University in Malaysia.

Commentators say that Najib needs strong economic growth to secure a clear mandate from voters to push through reforms considered crucial to win back foreign investors who increasingly skip Malaysia and head to other Southeast Asian economies. Malaysia’s private investment grew only two percent on average between 2006-2010, and was expected to be 10.8 percent of GDP this year, rising to 11.3 percent of GDP next year.

But the government is trying to turn the situation around quickly, and has been delivering some welcome news. At the end of October Prime Minister Najib announced details on $444bn worth of investments the country wants to attract over the next 10 years to double its national income. A government think-tank said in September that it had identified the investments, of which 60 percent would come from the private sector, 32 percent from government-linked companies and eight percent from government. The investment aims to rebalance Asia’s third most export-driven economy towards domestic demand and the service sector, at a time when foreign investors are increasingly attracted to other regional economies.

Some of the key projects named in the investment drive included Germany’s LFoundry, which will relocate and invest in five wafer fabrication plants in Kulim Hi-Tech Park in northern Kedah state over the next five years. Its Initial investment is valued at 214m ringgit while the total estimated investment is 1.9bn Malaysian ringgit ($610.3m).

There are also plans to build a 208-room hotel and 160-unit residence, to be managed by St Regis, an international six-star hospitality brand, while oilfield services firm Schlumberger has recently opened its Eastern Hemisphere Global Financial Services Hub in Malaysia. This is part of the Greater KL/Klang Valley Entry Point Project which aims to attract 100 new multinational corporations to relocate their operations in Kuala Lumpur by 2020.

In fact, Malaysia’s Economic Transformation Programme (ETP) has gotten off to a strong start with nine early wins announced at its roadmap launch in October. “The ETP is already delivering results. These early wins show that by focusing on action, results will flow,” said Najib. More confirmed investments will be announced over the next few months. “Based on our tracking, 53 ‘Entry Point Projects’ (EPPs) with a total investment value of $97bn (RM300.7bn), almost 45 percent of the total investment targeted, are already in various active stages of engagement,” he said.

Najib also announced that a four-tier ETP governance structure has been activated to monitor the progress of the initial 131 EPPs and conversion of the 60 business opportunities into new projects. “A clear governance structure is absolutely critical for the success of the ETP,” said Najib, adding that “the ETP is for all Malaysians”, pointing out that the 131 EPPs are spread all across the country, with 68 for Sarawak and 71 for Sabah.

“For several years now, the government has been the main driver of the economy, but this is neither prudent nor sustainable and the private sector has to reclaim their effective role as the main engine of growth for the economy, in line with the strategy of the 10th Malaysia Plan,” he added.

“We must grow the economic pie substantially. However, Malaysia can no longer be driven by past strategies based on labour intensive models. We need to take the high-skill, high-income route quickly to become and remain competitive in the global economy. Transformation is critical. Failure is not an option,” he said.

On paper, foreign investors and multinational companies may welcome the Kuala Lumpur’s efforts to step back from public sector investment in favour of opening up the market to foreign firms. But it is evident that investors have serious doubts about Malaysia’s political landscape, as well as the sometimes fractious nature of its multi-ethnic population. If Najib and his party call snap elections next year – and more importantly, if they win them – it may just create the political stability that investors are looking for.

Danger from within

Posted on by Charlotte Gill

As any experienced business traveller knows, when planning a trip to a new destination the first click of the mouse should take you to the UK’s Foreign Office Travel Advisory website. If the destination under examination is Somalia, the advice that appears on the screen is not encouraging.

“We advise against all travel to Somalia,” the FO states. “There is a high threat to western… interests from terrorism in Somalia. Attacks could be indiscriminate, including in places frequented by expatriates and foreign travellers. There is ongoing serious violence between opposing factions.”

“Westerners and those working for western organisations have been targeted in the past and this threat is ongoing. On 14 October two people working with the NGO Save the Children Fund were kidnapped in the town of Adado, near the Ethiopian border. Two French nationals were kidnapped from a hotel in Mogadishu on 14 July 2009. On 26 November 2008 one Briton and one Spaniard were kidnapped from Bosasso. One Briton and one Kenyan were kidnapped in the southern region of Juba on 1 April 2008.”

What really is happening in Somalia?
With its strategic location covering 3,300 miles of coastline around the Horn of Africa, Somalia is perfectly positioned to facilitate trade between eastern Africa and both Europe, through the Suez Canal, and Asia.

Unfortunately, its position also made it a prime location for both the US and the Soviet Union to monitor and control activity in northern Africa and the Middle East during the years of the Cold War.

So Somalia became a pawn in the political ambitions of the super powers, providing, in the process, one of the world’s clearest examples of the dangers of poorly managed foreign aid.

From the early 1970s economic and military assistance was pouring in to the country to such an extent that by the mid-1980s it is estimated the total foreign development assistance accounted for over fifty percent of the country’s GNP. This easy money enabled the government of the day to create a huge civil service based on patronage and fund a large armed force, using it to crush any political opposition.

With the collapse of the Cold War, Somalia’s strategic importance to its earlier benefactors diminished, as did the funding. By 1990, foreign aid had ceased almost entirely and in 1991, unable to continue paying for its support, the government collapsed. At this point, the northern province of Somaliland, the former British Somaliland Protectorate, withdrew from the union and reasserted its independence. It has since succeeded in building itself into a functioning democracy.

The rest of the country, however, descended into more than fifteen years of bloody civil war as the clans that traditionally dominate Somali life battled with each other for control of the country’s declining base of economic assets.

Rebuilding from ruin
It is believed that Somalia actually has sufficient natural resources to sustain its economy, but lacks the investment funds to develop them. According to a report in The East African, as of 2007, the national debt stood at $3.3bn, 81 percent of which is in arrears.  Prospects for paying this debt are slim; the international community is still reluctant to step in to help a country without government or rule of law, and the formal banking community is virtually non-existent. Today, the largest source of foreign exchange in the country is remittances which account for up to 40 percent of the income of urban households. Even this economic lifeline is in jeopardy, however, as the absence of a formal banking system means the remittances flow through a network of unregulated companies, attracting the nervous attention of anti-terrorism investigators.

The current generation of Somali warlords who have become dependent on extortion rackets and piracy for their livelihood are now finding it difficult to be persuaded to let their power base go in favour of the political settlement favoured by foreign agencies. According to some observers, the road to peace and reconstruction is more likely to be led by economic rather than political initiatives.

“Evidence suggests that the international donor community, along with most Somali politicians, have their priorities wrong,” according to a report by Conciliation Resources, an international NGO which seeks to influence government peacemaking policies. “They have put their intellects and their energies and their resources into finding political solutions first, which is always the most difficult thing for Somalis to achieve; and not enough energy and resources into building on what Somalis do best – that is responding to economic opportunities.”

There is evidence of a strong business community in Somalia despite the continuing internal strife. In its analysis of the current situation, Conciliation Resources notes that since 2000, Somali entrepreneurs have moved away from profiteering in the ‘war economy’ and begun to diversify into construction, trade with local neighbours in Africa, and investment in finance, transport and information technology.  A 2007 survey showed that Somalia ranked 16th out of 41 African countries in the number of mobile phone users and 11th in the number of internet users.

Once the Somali people have a taste of prosperity, the theory goes, they will demand better government and legal structures within which to build a secure future. There is considerable talent for rebuilding these structures residing in the Somali diaspora who escaped the years of civil war. Many of their children have grown up and been educated in the west and are keen to apply their more cosmopolitan outlook to the rebuilding of their ravaged country. Concern remains, however, that on returning to the country this new generation will be quickly reclaimed by and subsumed into the clans that have remained behind. Furthermore, the issue of repatriating the lands grabbed by the warlords during the 80s and 90s will continue to cause friction for any new government.

Fighting for control
What the businessmen of Somalia want is a safe and stable environment in which to operate. Since the collapse of the last functioning government in 1991, many businessmen began to fund their own judicial system based on Islamic law to help protect their business interests. Eventually these largely clan-dominated ‘courts’ allied themselves to form the Union of Islamist Courts (ICU). As more and more people turned to the Islamic courts, the ICU came to rival the Transitional Federal Government (TFG), formed in 2004 and enjoying the backing of the United Nations, the African Union and the United States, but lacking authority on the domestic front.

To the Western world, this development was viewed with fear and suspicion, but to native Somalis struggling to survive in a society rife with petty crime and terrorised by warlords, the Islamic courts were a welcome break in the cycle of violence. Even those who are wary of Islamic extremism were relieved to have an institution that was strong
enough to impose order and re-establish vital health, education and transportation services.

The chairman of the union was a moderate named Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, who had studied law in Libya and worked as a secondary school geography teacher.  However, there were other leaders within the ICU that had known connections to more militant Islamic groups, and this was enough to reinstate Somalia’s status as a strategic battleground within the region. The ICU was known to be receiving arms and funding from Eritrean Islamic groups, while the TFG was supported by the USA through Ethiopia.

In 2007 the ICU was driven out of the capital, Mogadishu, and the group splintered into several factions. One of the more militant groups, Al-Shabaab, continued the struggle for dominance of Somalia and managed to drive the Ethiopian troops out of the country by early 2009. In order to strengthen itself against these more radical Islamic fighters, the TFG formed an alliance with the remaining ICU groups and Sharif Sheikh Ahmed was elected President in January 2009.

Sadly for the people of this devastated country, this is not the end of the warfare. The two militant groups in opposition to the recognised government are now fighting each other for dominance. Some observers are suggesting that, aware that their continued violence is losing the hearts and minds of the Somali people, the militants are now exporting that violence to the outside world in a bid to goad the West into intervening, an act which would serve to re-unite the warring clans against a common enemy.

Meanwhile, the country is all but shattered. The World Food Programme partially suspended operations in January 2010 due to threats and attacks on aid workers. Most light industry has been looted and its machinery sold for scrap. The 21st September resignation of Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke exposed more rifts within the transitional government, and the violence continues.

But the spirit of enterprise continues to lurk under the surface.  In 2006 when the Islamic Courts had gained control and begun to re-establish the infrastructure of peace, foreign investors from Egypt, India and China began pouring in to set up businesses and establish trading relationships with their home countries. As one entrepreneur commented, “Somalia can develop into another Dubai. They have good weather, living is cheap and there are a lot of business opportunities.”