Charlotte Gill – Page 67 – Business Destinations

Cuba’s classicism

Posted on October 12, 2008February 4, 2011 by Charlotte Gill

Separated by a scant 90 miles of warm open sea, It’s difficult to imagine who is the bigger thorn in who’s side; Cuba or the US. Diametrically opposed since 1959 – it could almost be the strap line for a situation comedy about bad neighbours. Or perhaps a tale by Aesop about a soaring eagle and a stubborn mule living in perfect discordance.

Something has to give, of course, and wandering around the old colonial quarters of Havana, I swear I caught a glimpse of gold glittering in the streets.

There’s still plenty of evidence to suggest the opposite: the state-created jobs, a public transportation system bursting at the seams, entire families on a single motorcycle, and shops selling very little. They all act as reminders of an ideology that collapsed and vanished in Eastern Europe over a decade ago.

But then, look in another direction and the green shoots are showing – there actually is a makeover is in progress.

Cuba has decided to export its culture, advertise its climate and its beaches and sell them to foreigners. A former colonial island in the Caribbean, lined with beaches, the world’s best fishing, and 500 years of rich architectural heritage perfectly preserved is an attractive proposition compared to, say Brezhnev-era Minsk. And so, tourists pour in from around the world. Though, not America – unless they fly via Cancun (as many inquisitive good US citizens I met did).

Naturally, all these tourists need somewhere to stay. And from Havana to Santiago de Cuba, to Cienfuegos and back round to Havana, hotels and leisure complexes, and the occasional luxury development are mushrooming. The money behind them is flooding in from everywhere – Spain, China; everywhere except America. They’re filled with Japanese and Korean whitegoods too.

Fidel Castro has the hots for socialism more than ever, but the free market is slowly chewing away like …well, like a grub in an apple.

Several (unsubstantiated) rumours were relayed to me about McDonalds, Starbucks, and other viral US corporations banking property in Havana and counting the days until Castro smokes his last cigar.

Every time Castro trips or stumbles, Cubans weep openly in the streets, while others rub their hands in expectation.

Castro has long been viewed as an obstacle to the honey pot that Havana represents, but time is ticking away. The CIA recently disclosed that they believe the safest hands in socialism are now shaking under the effects of Parkinson’s disease. Of course, the 79-year-old’s staying-power has long been the subject of rumours, after almost half a century in power and literally hundreds of alleged attempts on his life. But the question as to who will succeed him – now his brother Raul has health problems – and which political and economic course Cuba will steer remains to be seen.

Until recently, there have been many clues that the old regime maybe relaxing its grip. After the devastation of Hurricane Wilma, Cuba went against their time-honoured principles and accepted a US offer to send a disaster team to help with the clean-up operation. Of course, the official line was typically stubborn Cuban President Fidel Castro did not object to the US visit, but maintained the country was not appealing for international aid.

There have been changes on the political front, too. In 2005, around 200 Cuban dissidents held a public meeting in Havana in defiance of a ban on political opposition, and even played a video message of support from former US President George W Bush. The Cuban authorities didn’t intervene; instead they expelled several European politicians who planned to attend.

After the fall of Communism in Russia, and China seeing capitalism as the best thing since boil-in-the-bag rice, it must be tough roughing it out and standing by your principles so close to the United States own back yard.

But then, Cuba isn’t entirely alone.

China, India, and Canada have recently strengthen their positions in Cuba, exploring for oil off the coast of Cuba in the Gulf of Mexico. Two Canadian companies, Pebercan and Sherritt International, have found oil close 2km off the northwest coast of Cuba. The oilfield, just 2km northwest of the island, contains an estimated 100m barrels. The discovery has naturally prompted interest by several foreign oil firms.

Cuba’s nickel exports now outstrip those of sugar – the very thing the island’s fortunes were built on by satisfing Europe’s sweet tooth. China’s president, Hu Jintao, visited at the end of 2004 and announced that his country would be investing more than $500m in modernising nickel production on the island, Beijing is also supplying a range of electrical goods, including the pressure cookers that Castro has been handing out for the past three months to save energy. The resulting revenue from these deals will be very welcome for Castro. A decade after the subsidies from Russia ended, he’s desperately been trying to make ends meet; with very middling results.

Venezuela who has become Cuba’s main trading partner; in 2004, dealing between them exceeded $1bn. In fact, their strongest South American ally supplies an estimated 80,000 barrels of subsidised oil to Cuba every day.

Of course, these developments are all well and good. But what about back home; what’s in it for the people of Havana?

Despite 30 years of geo-political isolation, the country is changing. The last decade of welcoming tourism is characterised by a frenetic transition. It seems the tourist dollars and rubbing shoulders with capitalism has had a positive effect.

Budding capitalists are everywhere; people officially employed in state jobs who boost their wages collecting empty bottles for the deposits. Waiters who work on incentives as they sell mojito cocktails to the tourists around the Plaza de la Catedral in Havana. The buskers that are ‘dedicated to their art’, but who display disapproval at tips they don’t consider worthy.

Wandering around the narrow streets, past refined but colonial mansions languishing in gentle deterioration, the countless churches, cobblestone plazas, and sixteenth-century fortresses make it one of the most complete colonial urban centres in the Americas. It’s unlike anywhere else. You can’t help thinking that the floodgates will burst open once their leader goes.

The future generation of Cubans – the one’s who’ve never known anything but Castro and his revolutionary politics – are the ones who’ll inherit the islands’ enormous untapped potential. However, the kids at Lenin High School (yes, really!) don’t seem quite so excited by the proposition of market forces.

“We don’t want capitalism. We want socialism,” a group of them chirrup. Others join in: “We don’t want to be like the United States because we want equality to all the people. We are the same people.”

“We have the same clothes, the same things. It’s not that the other countries that you’re better than me because you have a new Adidas and I don’t.”

So there you have it folks, carpetbaggers across the Straits of Florida can cool their boots. Changes are afoot, but Marxist Leninism ain’t dead yet.

Quick breaks

Posted on October 12, 2008February 4, 2011 by Charlotte Gill

Man Mo Temple – Hong Kong
Hong Kong Island’s oldest and most important temple dates back to the 1840s. Despite being firmly on the tourist trail, the atmosphere is always tranquil and the temple is often deserted.

Built under British rule, this bat-winged temple guarded by cauldrons and dog-lions is named after two principal deities: Man, the god of literature, who is dressed in red and holds a calligraphy brush; and Mo, the god of war, wearing a green robe and holding a sword.

Giant incense coils hang from the ceiling imparting a fragrant, smoky haze which enhances the stillness and permeate your clothing to remind you of your visit long after you’ve rotated back to the melee of Hong Kong.

Postman’s Park – City of London
The verdant brainchild of Victorian painter and philanthropist, George Watts, Postman’s Park is a small but welcome patch of public green space in the City of London. It’s squeezed into a plot north of St Paul’s Catherdral between King Edward Street, Little Britain and St Bartholomew’s Hospital.

The park acquired its name – not surprisingly – due to the patronage of workers from the nearby old General Post Office. Watt’s was an ardent supporter of London’s working classes and extraordinary ordinary folk. A public memorial here celebrates heroes from another age cast in Doulton ceramic tiles who would otherwise be long forgotten.

St. Luke’s in the Fields – NYC
In the unholy hubbub of New York, there’s still on place at the heart of the city that’s guaranteed to re-charge even the flattest batteries. Behind The Church of Saint Luke in the Fields deep in Greenwich Village – at the intersection of Hudson Street and Grove Street – lies a labyrinthine of garden paths, grass, and deep borders to lose yourself. Relax on one of the benches here and contemplate the serenity of this magical place in the eye of the surrounding maelstrom.

Breaking out of Benelux

Posted on October 12, 2008February 4, 2011 by Charlotte Gill

The name ‘Benelux’ – a compression of the three ‘member’ countries, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg – first appeared in 1944, when the governments in exile in London signed a treaty to form the Benelux Customs Union, which went into force in 1947. This in effect created what we would today call a ‘single market’, allowing the free flow of persons, goods and services, but not an ‘economic union’ as such.

The Benelux Customs Union was replaced in 1960 by the Benelux Economic Union, formed to give the three small states more weight in the European integration process. Today, all new EU regulation automatically overrides any existing agreement in the same area between the Benelux countries, although they continue to cooperate on ‘internal’ policy on such subjects as justice, policing and immigration.

Belgium
The economies of Belgium and Luxembourg have been unified since 1921 by the Convention of Economic Union, distinct from both the Benelux Customs Union and the EU.

Belgium relies particularly heavily on export earnings; 70 per cent of GDP is exported, one of the highest proportions in the world. Manufactured goods and machinery are the largest export sectors.

Successive Belgian governments have been keen proponents of European integration, including the introduction of a single European currency, which Belgium adopted upon its inception in 1999.

If any city can lay claim to being the ‘capital of Europe’, it is Brussels. Seat of numerous institutions, including the European Commission, European Council, Economic and Social Committee of the European Parliament and NATO, it also hosts some 1,600 multinationals representing 150 different nationalities.

Over 70 international airlines serve Brussels International Airport, and there are also international airports at Liege and Charleroi. Express train services and an excellent, toll-free highway network link it with most major European cities.

Netherlands
For centuries, the Dutch have had an international outlook and openness to foreign investment. Many multi-nationals recognise the Netherlands’ strategic location and pro-business environment, while a superior logistics and technology infrastructure and an educated, multi-lingual workforce enhance its lure as a business base.

Along with ICT (the Netherlands is one of the most ‘wired’ countries in the world), sectors which perform particularly well include biotechnology, chemicals, agri-food, pharmaceuticals, distribution and medical technology.

Over 20 airports in the UK and Ireland offer flights to Holland, mostly to Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport , where 20 per cent of the traffic is from or to the UK). Easy access to the rest of the world makes Schiphol one of Europe’s key business hubs. Holland also benefits from excellent road and rail links with the rest of Europe, while Rotterdam is the world’s largest seaport.

The Netherlands compactness is another business benefit. The area comprising Schiphol, Amsterdam, Utrecht, The Hague and Rotterdam is no bigger than the area within the M25.

The Dutch are also extraordinarily practical in business and are legendary in their keenness to ‘do the deal’. It also helps that most of them speak better English than most of us.

Luxembourg
The smallest country of the trio packs a mighty economic punch, with its financial sector housing more banks per capita than almost any other country in the world. The liberal legal framework provides not only banking secrecy, but also an advantageous taxation system which taxes profits, not turnover.

The financial sector is also populated by some 15,000 holding companies and 12,000 investment funds. As a result, the overall net assets of Luxembourg-managed financial institutions exceeded €1500b in 2005, compared with a GDP of some €29bn.

Arcelor, Luxembourg’s steel company, is the biggest in the world (2005 turnover: €32.6b), the ASTRA satellites, which bring hundreds of TV channels and radio stations to millions of households across Europe, are owned and controlled by Luxembourg and Goodyear’s technical research centre has long been based in the Grand Duchy. More recently, AOL has moved its European headquarters there.

Luxembourg has excellent communications to the rest of the world, including 10 daily UK connections, and a multi-lingual workforce with a history of peaceful employee relations.

A bright future for South Africa

Posted on October 12, 2008February 4, 2011 by Charlotte Gill

South Africa is a nation of 44.8 million people living in country more than twice the size of France. Until 1994, three quarters of its citizens had no say and no prospect of any say in the running of their own country.

Since the abolition of Apartheid, the nation has undergone a massive transformation, with education, employment, and economic reforms that were unthinkable under the former regime. The emphasis has been to get South Africa back on its feet and eliminate the equalities of the past without change jeopardising the future.

Just sorting out sound public finance strategies was a monumental task.

Public institutions – national, provincial and local government – had to be shaken up to manage budgetary and financial co ordinations; expenditure frameworks had to be set, and the restructure state assets had to be agreed. In short, the entire South African establishment had to be shaken up from the bottom up.

Rather than fall into ruin – or worse, Marxist rule, like many predicted – South Africa has prospered like no other nation in Africa.

Luckily, South Africa has always had it’s huge natural resources to fall back on – the very thing that set the province apart in the first place. Namely, it’s vast supply of gold, diamonds, and other minerals. Of course, once South Africa was seen to have mended its ways and embrace democracy, international trade sanctions were dropped and visitors once again came streaming into this unique and impressive land.

The country has seen modest but steady growth of three percent a year over the past decade.

Since 1994 international air traffic movements have increased by more than 70 percent and the number of departing international passengers by eight percent to 2,6 million. The total number of departing passengers rose by 3.1 million to 9.5 million and aircraft landings increased by 60,000 to 190,000 over the five-year period.

What’s more, the airline industry is expected to continue growing at an average annual rate of approximately 30 percent until the year 2030. Johannesburg International Airport is to spend 3.4-billion Rand upgrading security and facilities ahead of the 2010 Football World Cup, and another R8-billion by 2012 on building a new terminal to meet the demand of fast-growing passenger numbers. The upgrades will enable the airport to handle the giant Airbus A380 and the rapid rail link between the airport, Johannesburg and Pretoria.

In addition to this, South Africa’s ports Richards Bay, Durban, East London, Port Elizabeth, Mossel Bay, Cape Town and Saldanha have stretched themselves to meet demands. The count for seven out of Africa’s 16 largest ports and have daily cargoes streaming in from and out to Europe, Asia, the Americas and the east and west coasts of Africa. Located the southern tip of the dark continent, bridging the point between East and West, South Africa has truly become a global transportation hub.

In 2002, South African ports handled an average of 13 000 vessels carrying 500 million tons of cargo annually – that’s just 20 percent less than the UK. In fact, a new major deepwater port is currently under development in Coega, 20 km east of Port Elizabeth. Five billion SA rand have already been ploughed into the new port which guarantees to anchor South Africa is the focal point of shipping trade in the region.

South Africa’s per capita GDP, corrected for purchasing power parity, now positions the country as one of the 50 wealthiest in the world. Head and shoulders above the rest of the continent, South Africa is shaping up as Africa’s very own super power. In fact, it’s estimated that the nation accounts for up to 30 percent of the GDP of the entire African continent.

The Rand, the world’s most actively traded emerging market currency, was recognised by the Bloomberg Currency Scorecard as the best performing currency against the US dollar between 2002 and 2005. The Rand is now part of the Continuous linked Settlement (CLS) which eliminates the risks associated with trading currencies across time zones.

“The economic outlook is exceedingly favourable – more promising than has been seen in 40 years,” South Africa’s Finance Minister, Trevor Manuel said told the National Assembly during his 2006/2007 Budget speech. “And our policy stance, unlike that of 40 years ago, emphasises development opportunities for all South Africans, built on a foundation of social solidarity and a shared economic destiny.”

Most of South Africa’s resources are focused on four main urban areas – namely: Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, Durban, and Pretoria-Johannesburg. It’s here where the wealth and professional classes are based.

Of course, reforms have meant that a new black middle class is gathering pace in the suburbs, but many South Africans remain poor and unemployment is high – around 30 percent.

Economists believe that South Africa’s economy would need to almost double to at least five percent – six percent a year to absorb the surfeit of job seekers.

Economic growth will stimulate investment and make it worthwhile for companies to employ people, which in turn will massage the poverty trap and help reduce South Africa’s notorious crime rate.

Thabo Mbeki succeeded Nelson Mandela as South Africa’s leader when he stepped down in 1999. He has since been elected for a second five-year term following the landslide general election victory of his governing African National Congress (ANC) in 2004.

Mbeki is committed to helping his country fulfil its promise by addressing the legacy of South Africa’s social shortcomings. Since the fall of apartheid in 1994, an additional 10 million people now have access to fresh water, four million to electricity; 1.5 million new homes have been built, South African officials say. And next on the list is education and skill development.

“Together with our social partners, we have agreed to a vigorous and wide-ranging skills development and acquisition programme to meet any shortfalls we may experience, to respond to the skills challenge in as practical a manner as possible,” Mbeki said.

The President explained to South Africa’s Parliament in Cape Town that the government’s growth strategy “confirmed the need to expand our small, medium and micro enterprise (SMME) sector, paying particular attention … to broad-based black economic empowerment and the development of women and the youth.”

“Our experience with regard to the development of this sector indicates that we must pay particular attention to issues of access to capital, entrepreneurial training, assistance with marketing, and the development of cooperatives.

“We will also speed up the consultative process to determine the measures we must take to improve the regulatory climate to facilitate the expansion of this sector.”

In February 2006, a leading UK telecommunications corporation went some way to realising Mbeki’s plans. As TalkTalk announced plans to spend R200-million setting up two call centres – one in Cape Town and the other in Johannesburg. It’s the biggest foreign investment yet in South Africa’s burgeoning info service industry.

TalkTalk aren’t the only company who’re piling money into the region. Other companies running call centres in the Western Cape include Barclays, JP Morgan, Lufthansa, the Budget Group, Merchants/Asda, Dialogue and STA Travel. In fact, investment in the area leapt by 20 percent between 2004 and 2005, with nearly one billion Rand of foreign money being pumped into the service industries.

A report by Datamonitor estimates that the IT service industry in South Africa is due to double in size by 2008, with around 1,000 operational call centres. The reason companies are targeting South Africa is because of low running costs – estimated to be just two-thirds of their equivalents in Britain and USA.

Indian sprawl

Posted on October 12, 2008February 4, 2011 by Charlotte Gill

It wasn’t long ago that the mental image that India conjured looked like this: itinerant cows roaming dusty streets, colourful sadhu holy men and backpackers living it up on the hippy trail on a dollar a day.

Of course, it’s still much the same in grate swathes of this exotic nation, but a multitude of well-healed, bright individuals are helping to temper the stereotype.

The idea that India might one day provide the main engine behind the global economy would have seemed laughable a decade ago. And yet here it is; measured by purchasing power parity India has become the fourth largest economy in the world.

India’s GDP has grown steadily over the last few decades at an average annual rate of six percent (even tipping 8.1 percent in 2005), making it the second fastest-growing market in the world. The country is today undergoing a consumer boom fuelled by a muscular economy that rivals even that of China.

China’s economy is set to exceed the US by 2040, but India’s more youthful population is set to overtake China’s by 2050. Consequently, India is set to outstrip its Asian neighbour in both population and economic growth.

The nation’s colossal labour force of 482.2 million outnumbers the entire population of America by more that one-and-a-half times. Two-thirds of them still earn their livelihood through agriculture – which actually contributes comparatively little to the nation’s overall GDP. It’s an anomalous human resource that’s catapulted India to the top of the scales.

Every year, the nation produces a huge number of highly educated individuals who are fluent in English. In fact, it’s estimated that by 2010, India will have more English speakers than anywhere else in the world, and in the last decade, India has made huge inroads into cornering the world’s service needs thanks to this intellect-blessed army. Their financial rewards of are now clearly visible on the streets of India’s most dynamic towns.

As a business traveller, there’s very little difference here to visiting Denver or Düsseldorf. Thoughtfully, the local authorities include the occasional sign in written Sanskrit to remind you that this is indeed India.

“Work culture here is similar to that I have experienced in the west,” systems analyst Dinesh Rau told me.

“That’s probably because most of the seniors and managers in our company have been exposed to work culture in the west and they are comfortable “importing” the best practices.”

Bangalore has been dubbed ‘India’s Silicon Valley’. The city – located 1,000km from Mumbai in the southern half of the subcontinent – is the main contributor to India’s $12.2bn IT and software export market. Over 50 different international companies have offices here, including: Sun Microsystems, Siemens, Novell, McAfee, IBM, Dell, Cisco, and Alcatel. All are located in the three main IT business parks that are clustered around the city – Software Technology Parks of India, Bangalore (STPI); International Technology Park Ltd. (ITPL); and Electronics City. In fact, from the company logos and office architecture you’d be hard pressed to distinguish it from Silicon Valley.

India has attracted a lot of attention for attracting foreign investment such as call centres, and for many in the West, outsourcing has become a dirty word. But the days are over when India’s information technology services firms were seen as the sweatshops of the computer world.

Amongst the techno elite in Bangalore, there’s a real feeling that the city – and India as a whole – is taking on the world. Today they provide the full range of IT services, from call centres to software development to
consulting. Everyone from the US government to banking giants UBS Warburg are outsourcing work to India.

Plus, they also realise that there are hundreds of millions of people within its very borders who will be demanding mobile phones and computers in the coming decades. The country is home to a sixth of the world population and more than half of them are under 25 years old. This colossal domestic market is one that India’s hi-tech industry fully intends to exploit by itself, without giving the whole opportunity away to rivals in the west or elsewhere in Asia.

Until 1991, India’s economy was stuck in the same rut it had been in since gaining independence in 1947. While the other Asian tiger economies roared into life, India’s meandered along at a steady rate of just three percent. Gandhi’s socialist influence on economics – the so-called ‘Hindu rate of growth’ – meant that the prevailing economic strategy was to champion equality and social stability over wealth.

As a consequence, Indians weren’t pre-occupied with making money. Anyone wishing to better themselves, studied first in their homeland, then high-tailed it to west for their profession.

After the economic reforms of 1991, that all changed – government controls on foreign trade and investment were reduced and the markets opened up. The message now is similar to that which Deng Xiaoping espoused in China during the 1990s – “To get rich is glorious.” And soon India will have 3.8m households with an annual income of 10m rupees (£130,000).

Of course, not everyone earns that. In fact, the average programmer in Electronics City earns $5,880 a year. About a sixth of what his contemporaries in the west would bring home.

“I started receiving my pay check in rupees,” Says Mohan Babu, who returned from Colorado to work for Infosys’ SetLabs in Bangalore. “Looking at my pay check and intuitively converting it into dollars, I was not surprised at why all the multinationals are flocking to India.”

Babu says the average salary of a Project Manager or Senior Architect’s salary easily pays for all the essentials: food, clothing, entertainment, a well-appointed house, and even a servant. It’s no match for the dollar outside the country, but the Rupee still goes a long way in India.

Despite being half a world apart, there’s little difference between him and his former colleagues in the US, Babu says. “Thinking in Java is what Java programmers do whether they are in Bangalore or Boulder. The building-blocks in most technologies remain the same. Work and technologies, project cycles, implementations and systems are still universal, especially since the clients of Indian software companies are predominantly American..”

Like most of the nation’s information workforce, Babu is an alumni of India’s Institutes of Technology (IITs). These higher education facilities were founded soon after India gained independence from Britain in 1947. Their purpose was to train engineers and scientists to help build the nascent nation’s infrastructure.

Many international surveys put IIT’s in the top 50 universities of the world; and having an IIT degree is comparable to one gained from Oxford or Harvard.

IIT alumni include: Infosys co-founder N.R. Narayana Murthy, Sun Microsystems co-founder Vinod Khosla, Citigroup senior vice chairman, Victor Menezes, and CEO of Vodaphone Arun Sarin. Thanks to these and equally brilliant individuals like them, there’s a world view amongst corporate HR departments that IIT graduates are uniformly intelligent and hardworking.

Unfortunately, armed with this branded educational currency, the upshot has meant that 70 percent of IIT graduates have preferred to stream abroad to take up professional roles in Europe and America. Until now their effect has been felt everywhere but India. Even the United States House of Representatives passed a resolution in 2005 honouring Indian Americans and especially graduates of IIT.

Thanks to India’s burgeoning economy and exemplary prospects for the future, the fifty year brain drain trend has finally been plugged. The percentage of students has fallen substantially, and many like Babu are returning to the motherland.

R.A. Mashelkar is director general of India’s Council of Scientific and Industrial Research. He explains that a growing number of young professionals were returning home to be part of India’s economic boom:

“There was a time when the IIT pass-outs were going abroad, but the latest data shows that the percentage is down to 30 percent. The main reason behind this is now India is being seen as a land of opportunity.

Companies like Infosys and Wipro are now major employers. Reversal of brain drain has now begun and with more opportunities in the country, we would see more professionals returning home.”

Dewang Mehta, president of NASSCOM, the New Delhi-based software lobby group agrees: “Those who established themselves in the United States, built contacts and earned big money are looking homeward. They’re bringing back the money and they’re bringing back the business contacts. It’s fantastic.”

As a result, foreign investors have been pumping money into Indian markets, keen to take a share of its fast-growing economy. Speculators piled a record $10.7bn (£6bn) on Indian shares last year, and the subcontinent come out as a top Asian destination for investment in a survey of fund managers’ top picks. And despite the falls in May 2006, the IMF’s economists still think that India is punching below its weight – the economy they say has the potential to match or even exceed China in the longer run.

Mashelkar has an idea how knowledge superpower status might finally be achieved with a three pronged focus on education, education, and you guessed it – education.

“Only six percent of India’s countrymen have access to higher education, whereas in Korea this figure is 68 percent. We immediately need to increase the enrolment in higher education and we would need to improve the standard of our universities. We need to invest more in the universities.”

Lookout, World – India is about to brain up even more.

India’s major business cities

Mumbai
The largest city in India, Mumbai (nee Bomaby) is home to 17 million people. The city is located on the Western coast of India and it’s early success is due to it’s busy natural harbour. Mumbai is home to Bollywood – India’s film and television industry.

Climate – Located on the Arabian Sea, Mumbai enjoys warm tropical yea-round temperatures. The monsoons fall between June and September providing the city with most of its rainfall.

Food – Indigo – 4 Mandlik Marg -Tel: 022 5636 8999 – Mumbai’s restaurant par excellence, it’s everything you’d hope in a restaurant – inventive cuisine, a wine list to rival anywhere, and an interior to die for.

Accommodation – ITC Grand Maratha Sheraton – Mumbai International Airport. The ultimate in spacious luxury, the Sheraton offers fabulous rooms, three restaurants, and acres of granite and marble. The spa is indispensable during the humid months.

Bangalore
The capital of the Indian state of Karnataka, Bangalore is home to India’s gigantic IT services industry. It’s often referred to as India’s Silicon Valley. Bangalore has a population of six million, making it India’s third-largest city.

Climate – Temperatures rarely drop below 20C in Bangalore, nor do they reach the oppressive heat felt in Dehli. Instead, the IT industry here makes good use of the temperate, dust-free weather.

Food – Karavalli – 66 Residency Rd – For the last decade, Karavalli has been treating Bangalore’s movers and shakers to fresh seafood from Kerala – lobster, pomfret, shrimp, and lady fish – all cooked in unique southern Indian style.

Accommodation – The Leela Kempinski Bangalore – 23 Airport Road – Built in the style of the Royal Palace of Mysore, the Leela Palace is designed to impress. Set in seven acres of lush gardens, it’s worlds apart from the other hotels in Bangalore.

Delhi
New Delhi is the capital of India, and also acts as the nation’s travel hub. The sixth most populous metropolis in the world, the city is home to 15 million people.

Climate – Summers are uncomfortably hot. From April the temperature climbs relentlessly to more than 45°C (113°F) and despite the monsoon season at the end of June, the heat and humidity lasts until October.

Food – The Gaylord – 18 Regal Bld – Tel: 11 2336 0717. Without question, the most sumptuous restaurant in Delhi, with huge mirrors, chandeliers, and excellent Indian food with the never stints on ingredients.

Accommodation – Hyatt Regency – Ring Rd – Not the most central of Delhi’s hotels, but this 500-room five-star establishment is the best bet for business travellers who aren’t looking for pleasant (or unpleasant) surprises.

A snapshot of business travel

Posted on October 12, 2008February 9, 2011 by Charlotte Gill

The Online Travel Survey, which recorded the experiences of 170 ‘road warriors’ from across the globe, examined key elements that affect a business trip from the point of booking, to travellers’ experience on the road, to the expense reimbursement process upon returning to the office. The results of the survey serve as a unique look into the mind of today’s travellers, and they will form the basis of education sessions and reports to be shared with ACTE members during the association’s upcoming Global Conference in Atlanta, as well as future events.

Findings indicated that managing travel spend is becoming more important with each passing year, as online capabilities make booking easier and business travel in general continues to be on the rise. Research from PhoCusWright supports this idea, as that firm’s independent research showed that unmanaged European travel spend has increased from €7.7bn in 2002 to €28.6bn in 2005. In the US, PhoCusWright determined that online corporate travel bookings grew from $18.8bn in 2003 to $36.5bn in 2006.

The KDS/ACTE survey demonstrates that with this rising spend comes a corresponding rise in customer needs. Travellers were polled on their opinions on a number of topics, including how strongly they feel about changes in the business travel sector that affect their life and the way they travel. The issues covered in the survey ranged from practical, internal issues areas such as how knowledgeable travellers are of their companies’ travel policies and how often they use online, self-booking tools, to more global issues such as whether mobile phone communication should be allowed mid-flight.

Respondents were well-seasoned travellers, with 31 percent taking more than 20 trips annually and 33 percent taking travelling 10 to 20 times annually. The travellers polled came from a cross-section of the globe, including Africa, Asia, North America, Continental Europe, Eastern and Central Europe, and the UK. The majority of survey respondents work in Continental Europe (32 percent), the US (31 percent) and the UK (25 percent). Fifty-five per cent of survey respondents work at firms with more than 5,000 employees.

The online factor
Among the most revealing indicators of how business travellers’ habits have evolved over the past few years is the widespread use of online, self-booking tools. The industry-wide push toward the use of self-booking tools to improve traveller efficiency and collect more accurate management information has begun to pay off. The survey found that more than half of travellers (53 percent) use their company’s self-booking tool to execute their travel plans.

Not everyone is online, though: a number of travellers (30 percent) still prefer to book direct through their company’s travel agent. This may be explained by the fact that many senior-level executives do not make their own travel bookings and most large corporations still have a dedicated travel department to facilitate senior-level travel requests.

The majority (67 percent) of those who are using a self booking tool report their experience has been either good, or “rather good”. Only 1 percent reported a bad experience.

Yves Weisselberger, CEO of KDS, explains that the increasing use of self booking tools is attributable to two key factors:
– the market has changed in terms of economic structure, where online tools have proven they can deliver substantial savings, both in terms of direct costs of yielding a lower average ticket price, as well as indirect costs in terms of improving employee efficiency.
– the online industry as a whole is reaching a mature stage, where travellers are more accustomed to using such tools. “Each market has a curve of adoption,” Weisselberger observed, “and there is always an initial phase of hesitation, followed by a period of substantial acceleration. We are now in the middle of that acceleration period.”

The good news is that the adoption of online booking tools in Europe is likely to continue to rise, and will soon match the high adoption rates seen in regions such as the United States. A big driver behind further adoption will be the increasing use of online tools for personal reasons (i.e., online grocery shopping), Weisselberger explained. “As more people buy online in their personal lives, they become more accustomed to this way of business” said Weisselberger. “When they come into the office they take these new competencies with them and find it much easier to apply the comfort of online transactions to the work environment.”

User-friendly advances in technology also help to boost adoption. Over the years, companies such as KDS have made vast improvements to software with a focus on enhancing the traveller experience.

However, the survey found there is still room for improvement. For instance, 13 percent explore fares on consumer web sites. Dr Keith Mason, Director of Business Travel Research Centre, Department of Air Transport at UK-based Cranfield University, notes that companies should be concerned about travellers booking direct – outside the management tool, either through a consumer site or a travel agent. “This represents a group that companies could potentially save money by directing towards self-service reservation tools,” Mason observes.

“The results clearly suggest that to drive up online adoption, self-service reservation tools should offer full content (perhaps requiring data aggregation from various sources). The respondents of this survey clearly are willing to adopt online booking given the right tool – and so doing will push down costs. Perhaps a better online expenses system integrated into the in-company expenses systems might drive higher adoption rates,” says Mason.

The area of expense management also has room for improvement in terms of automation. According to the survey results, 44 percent of travellers do not use an online expense reporting tool. 39 percent of respondents said they have a dedicated online expense reporting tool, while 8% use the same tool to settle expenses as they do to book travel.

Weisselberger believes expense management will be the next big area of focus, as companies aim to close the gap between manual and automated reporting. In this way, he said, “It is important for software companies to offer a comprehensive solution to corporate customers so that the booking tool, expense solution and management information are delivered in a unified component and all elements of the travel process are handled seamlessly.”

Comment
The business travel management industry – the fourth most important component in a corporate arsenal of great products, motivated sales support, and cohesive communications — is increasingly subject to pressures from both outside and inside the travel industry.

Business travel managers and procurement specialists are compelled to explore new methods of cost-containment in a highly pressurised global business environment. The art of balancing traveler productivity, return on investment, and cost containment is typically complicated by fuel spikes, political developments, and economic surges that constantly change the value equation.

Certain issues that ten years ago did not factor into a corporate travel policy are now shaping policy. These issues include privacy, security, technology, and corporate social responsibility. How do issues like this impact cost containment? Government regulations on privacy and security drive up cost and time where business travel is concerned. Changing technology always comes with implementation, training, and expansion costs, which must be offset with a promise of return on investment. Moreover, topics and trends such as corporate social responsibility can reclaim dollars in the conservation of resources like fuel, while emerging as a crucial part of a new business ethic.

The hidden challenge of the business travel management industry entails incorporating all of the above into a finite number of weekly work hours, a certain portion of which must be devoted to fare negotiation, GDS issues, technological evaluation, and monitoring and reporting, and matching travel resources to changing corporate objectives. This is only possible if the work load is distributed between a number of experts… 2,500 experts in 48 countries, to be exact.

Barcelona will become the ultimate destination for the international business travel industry on 22 October through 24 October 2006, through the Association of Corporate Travel Executives’ Global Education Conference. Leading global experts on government, industry, transnational issues and economics will present the current state of the business travel industry to allow you to bridge the cost-value gap.

Daniel Calleja y Crespo, Director, Air Transport Department Directorate-General for Energy and Transport European Commission, will address the Commission’s current initiatives dealing with Air Service Agreements worldwide and the balance between a regulatory free market approach; improved aircraft positioning and communication technologies; and sustainable mobility initiatives and passenger rights issues in the EU and their impact on the travel and transport industry.

Dr. Frank-Jürgen Richter Former Director, World Economic Forum, Asian Affairs & President, Horasis, will detain steps essential for sustainable corporate strategies, in the face of economic shifts in Asia. Dr. Ricardo Baeza-Yates Director, Yahoo! Research – Europe and Latin America, will illustrate how today’s business travel management experts are uniquely positioned to harness the next generation of internet tools to streamline travel procurement and distribution, integrate legacy systems, and add value to service delivery.

Six distinct educational tracks will put theory to practical application through presentations covering, technology & data management, relationship management, category spend management, financial management, global Management, and ACTE Advisory Committee Findings. Conventional wisdom will be challenged with sessions focusing on credit card merchant fees as another way of cutting distribution costs, stronger fiscal accountability through tighter contract management, and hotel distribution in a fragmented market.

This is only scratching the surface. Topics at this event run from the cerebral (The Travel Effect: Why Achieving Work-Life Balance is Good Business) to the purely mathematical (Business Intelligence: Leveraging Your Payment and Travel Data).

The ACTE Barcelona conference will be more than a business destination in October. The Barcelona conference will be the origin of a new business philosophy, distributed throughout a global industry, in three days of open dialog and education.

Edinburgh: Britian’s second capital

Posted on October 12, 2008February 21, 2011 by Charlotte Gill

Edinburgh is Britain’s second most visited city and regularly wins awards as a tourist destination and for the quality of its life – ten major Best City awards in the last six years, most recently by Telegraph readers as their favourite British city. It is a one of the most beautiful cities in the world with its famous ‘crag and tail’ skyline and also one of the most intimate; one can walk across it within an hour and within minutes of the centre one is in Holyrood Park and climbing the extinct volcano, Arthur’s Seat.

It is also one which is contradictory, complex and full of surprises; the Old Town with its steep wynds and jumbled tenements glaring across Princes Street Gardens to the elegant, symmetrical squares of the New Town; the sprawling outer estates of Pilton and Silverknowes with their crime and drug problems adjacent to genteel Edinburgh suburbs; a city of unexpected vistas and of eerie alleys, a capital city which has the feel of a town, a bustling metropolis made up of a succession of individual villages.

Visitors are drawn by its beauty, magnificent architecture, its plethora of historical sites, its various festivals, its sixty galleries and five major theatres, its vibrant nightlife and high quality accommodation, restaurants and shopping. Increasingly, especially since its designation as UNESCO’s First City of Literature in 2004 and the publication of the novel The Da Vinci Code with its scenes near Edinburgh, they are also being drawn by its literary associations. Several literary guides to the city have recently been published, there are plans for various literary tours, the Writers’ Museum is due to expand and organisations such as Edinburgh City of Literature, with the aim of making more of Edinburgh’s literary past, have been set up.

Outside of London, Edinburgh has more literary associations than any other part of Britain. Almost every well-known literary figure has visited it whilst three of Britain’s most successful writers – JK Rowling, Alexander McCall-Smith and Ian Rankin – presently live within a mile of each other. The city has inspired over five hundred novels ranging from RL Stevenson’s Dr Jekyl and Mr Hyde to Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting and it is now the fictional crime capital of the world.

Kenneth Graham, author of The Wind in the Willows, and Arthur Conan Doyle were born there but sought fame and fortune in the south, while Compton Mackenzie and Thomas de Quincey spent their last years there though they had no prior connection with the city. Percy Bysshe Shelley came there to be married, William Hazlitt to be divorced, John Buchan worked for the Edinburgh publishers Thomas Nelson while Walter Scott was for many years an Edinburgh lawyer.

RM Ballantyne, who wrote the children’s classic Coral Island, was at Edinburgh Academy just before R.L. Stevenson, Rebecca West was educated at George Watsons Ladies College while Ian Fleming’s character James Bond was sent to the public school Fettes after an indiscretion with a ladies maid at Eton. ‘St Trinians’, immortalised in Ronald Searle’s cartoons, was based on an Edinburgh school of the same name while, perhaps, the best known Edinburgh novel The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, was inspired by Muriel Spark’s time at James Gillespie’s School for Girls.

Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon were sent to convalesce in Edinburgh during the First World War – the inspiration for Pat Barker’s novel Regeneration – where they were visited by Robert Graves. Other literary visitors to Edinburgh have included W.H. Auden, John Betjeman, Robert Burns, Daniel Defoe, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Washington Irving, Henry James, Tobias Smollett, William Thackeray, Oscar Wilde, Evelyn Waugh and William Wordsworth.

Two writers, perhaps surprisingly associated with the city, are Hans Christian Andersen and Jules Verne. Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875) visited the city in 1847 where he was entertained widely by, amongst others, James Simpson who discovered chloroform. A plaque marks his stay at 73 East Trinity Road. Verne (1828-1905) is best remembered for Journey to the Centre of the Earth, 20,000 Leagues under the Sea and Around the World in 80 Days but he knew Edinburgh well and both Backwards to Britain and The Underground City have numerous Edinburgh scenes.

A sense of the literary past is always present as the city has changed comparatively little during the last two hundred years and the buildings lived in or frequented by writers are therefore still much as they were. It is also immediately apparent. Many visitors’ first experience of the city is of arriving by rail at Waverley Station (named after Sir Walter Scott’s novel) and emerging in Princes Street with the Scott Monument ahead of them and beyond the Castle.

Edinburgh Castle figures in numerous novels including Walter Scott’s Tales of a Grandfather, RL Stevenson’s St Ives, George Borrow’s Lavengro as well as several recent novels which often have at their centre plots to blow up the Military Tattoo. Almost opposite the Scott Monument in Rose Street stands Milne’s Bar which throughout the 1950s and 1960s was the meeting place of a whole generation of poets dedicated to writing in the Scots tongue.

Behind the Scott Monument is Princes Street Gardens, a grassy oasis of sheltered walkways, rows of inscribed benches, statues – many of them to literary figures – and neatly laid-out flowerbeds. It was in an air-raid shelter in the gardens during the Second World War that the Labour politician and journalist Tom Driberg was arrested for picking up a Norwegian sailor, an episode Compton Mackenzie used in his novel Thin Ice about the precarious life of a homosexual politician.

Almost every street off The Royal Mile which stretches from the Castle to Holyrood Palace at the bottom has some sort of literary association. A few yards down on the north side is James Court where the philosopher David Hume lived, later renting his flat to James Boswell who in turn entertained Dr Johnson there. James Court leads into Lady Stair’s Close, where Burns lodged on his first visit to Edinburgh in 1786, and which is now the site of the Writers’ Museum.

Part of Charles Dickens’ The Pickwick Papers is set further down the Royal Mile. Dickens’ wife’s family came from Edinburgh (his father-in-law was a friend of Walter Scott) and the writer knew the city well. He was a frequent visitor, his genius recognised early with the granting of the City’s Freedom while he was still in his twenties, and he was asked to represent the city in Parliament.

And yet Edinburgh is not trapped by its history or literary past. It is a living breathing city, an important financial centre, home of Scotland’s first devolved parliament since 1707, a place where stylish smoky-glass buildings stand easily besides architectural gems of the fifteenth century onwards, where new hotels and restaurants are opening every day and a new international fashion show is due to be staged in April. The port of Leith has been regenerated attracting restaurateurs, housing and office development and plans are afoot to do much the same at Portobello; the airport has been revamped and is now Britain’s fastest growing with regular flights all over Europe whilst the rail journey between Edinburgh and Glasgow could be cut to under twenty minutes if plans for a ‘bullet’ train are approved.

It is no wonder then that it remains a popular choice for business travellers – since 1996 the Edinburgh Ambassadors Programme has attracted over two hundred major conferences to the city generating over £55m in revenue.

Sampling Seville

Posted on October 12, 2008February 18, 2011 by Charlotte Gill

Certainly, few who spend some time in Spain’s great southern city come away indifferent, despite being the country’s fourth largest city – with a population of 720,000 – Seville manages to feel manageable and laid-back, its captivating old town, pedestrianised streets and rich Moorish past amounting to a seductive proposition.

Depending on the purpose of your visit, April can be a fascinating time to come: this month hosts the city’s two world famous festivals, Abril Feria (April Fair) and Semana Santa, a blazing spectacle of colour, noise and life.

But if business is your sole reason for the visit, beware: April is the month that hotels and restaurants fill to bursting point and the cost of a room spirals.

Festivals aside, Seville is also Spain’s third most important business tourism destination: in the fourth quarter of 2005, 17 percent of total visitors were business or congress visitors, according to the tourist board.

The city is a popular choice for conferences, conventions and incentive trips, its infrastructure improved for the Universal Exposition, held here in 1992. Regular AVE trains, which are fast and slick, connect Seville to Madrid, in under three hours, and a host of airlines – including BA and Ryanair from London – fly to and from the San Pablo airport, 12km from the city centre.

One of the improvements made for the ’92 Expo was the building of Palace de Exposiciones y Congresos, a major conference and exhibition venue on the outskirts of the city. A multi-purpose hall seats 600, with up to six auxiliary rooms for between 50 and 175 people. There’s also a large meeting room, VIP lounge and restaurants seating up to 200.

The year 2010 is set to see the centre expand: plans are afoot to extend it so that it can stage European and international conferences for over 6,000 delegates.

Four-star hotels are plentiful: in 2005, 36 fell into this category, amounting to 5342 rooms. The five-star list is far smaller, at four hotels in total, or 685 hotel rooms.

If the company’s budget permits, try and reserve a room in Alfonoso XIII, built in 1928 to be one of Europe’s most luxurious hotels. It has since played host to royal families and heads of state across the world, its 147 rooms furnished in Moorish, Castillian or Baroque style.

It’s easy to wile away spare time in Seville: as the regional capital of Andalusia, sights are plentiful and the city is a delight to explore on foot, though the searing heat of the summer months makes a siesta a wise – some would say necessary – pastime.

First stop, and home to most of the sights, should be the old town, the Barrio Santa Cruz, a former Jewish ghetto, where every street comes with its own romantic legend.

Even in high summer, when the sun penetrates every other corner of the city, this area offers some respite – the tall whitewashed buildings throw long shadows across the tiny streets, filtering out the sun. If the heat permits, mid afternoon, during siesta-time, can be an especially rewarding time to wander, the streets empty apart from some ally cats and a few tour groups.

The best plan when touring the Barrio Santa Cruz is really not to have one: chances are, the labyrinthine streets will make a mockery of your sense of direction anyway. Put the map away and wander randomly, stopping for some tapas in one of the numerous bars (though don’t come before 2pm for lunch, or 9pm in the evening – Spaniards eat and play late), or loitering in a shady patio.

Deep in the heart of the Barrio Santa Cruz there are a few buildings not to miss, however: notably the Hospital de los Venarables, containing Sevillian works of art, and the striking mansions of the Calle Lope de Rueda.

It’s likely you’ll emerge, blinking, from the old town to the central square housing Seville’s cathedral – a vast, imposing structure and possibly the largest gothic building in the world.

Taking over a century to finish, it was built after a group of religious fanatics decided to construct a church so wonderful that “those who come after us will take us for madmen”. The cavernous interior, pleasantly cool in the summer, contains 44 chapels, painstakingly carved altarpieces, and, so it’s claimed, the remains of Christopher Columbus.

Seville’s Moorish legacy can be sampled at a very different building, the Alcazar, a seventh-century palace-fortress seemingly tailor-made for the operas of Carmen or Figaro. The city was a favourite base for the Spanish kings for around four centuries – and the fourteenth century ruler Pedro the Cruel lived and ruled from this building.

Pedro’s legacy remains, as he ordered a rebuilding of the palace, using fragments of earlier Moorish buildings in Seville, Cordoba and Valencia. It now harbours some of the best surviving examples of Mudejar architecture – the style developed by Moors working under Christian rule. The willowy, enchanting gardens of the Alcazar, with their tall palms and abundance of orange trees, are worth at least an hour’s exploration on their own.

Maria Luisa Park is another spot in which to linger, with one of the loveliest parks in Europe, this half-mile area to the south of the city is studied with orange trees, palms, elms and Mediterranean pines, the dazzling flower beds dotted among pavillions and ponds. It feels sub-tropical and exotic; more like north Africa than Europe.

If time permits, the Triana area – on the other side of the Guadalquivir River – is a fascinating place to stroll; it has a feisty, quirky character a world away from the well-trodden streets of the Barrio Santa Cruz.

Traditionally the gypsy quarter, Triana retains a slightly scruffy, bohemian feel, but it oozes character, and is the home of some of the city’s best ceramic shops and a host of tapas bars.

Rumour has it that this is the best area in the whole of the city to catch some authentic flamenco, away from the Barrio Santa Cruz, where some of the shows offering ‘genuine’ flamenco are anything but. To maximise the chance of experiencing some of the elusive real stuff, come late (ideally not before midnight) and seek a bar full of locals. You could strike lucky.

If that sounds too much like hard work perhaps it’s best to follow the lead of the Sevillianos: find a spare bench and relax while the life of the river, with its volleyball players and rowers, passes you by.

En route to Triana, overlooking the river, you’ll pass the thirteenth century Torre del Oro (‘tower of gold’), part of the original Moorish city foundations. It now houses a maritime museum containing drawings depicting Seville at its heyday.

Seville online
www.turismo.sevilla.org
www.spanish-fiestas.com
www.barriosantacruz.com
www.about-sevilla.com

Zurich: A philosopher’s city

Posted on October 12, 2008November 4, 2011 by Charlotte Gill

The words ‘trendy’ and ‘Zurich’ have rarely gone together in English. ‘Boring, banking and gnomic’ are the descriptions more likely to attach themselves like barnacles to Switzerland’s economic engine and largest city.

But if a yawn-inducing reputation still precedes it in many corners of the world, contemporary Zurich appears to have outgrown those stereotypes.

Mingling with the exuberant crowds along the cobbled Niederdorfstrasse, watching an upright pin-striped banker zip home on a Segway scooter and spying various German-language ‘cool guides’ to this compact metropolis of 342,000 people, visitors might think it’s time to divorce the dull image from the reality.

True, with a couple of church clock towers rising above the medieval houses lining the blue-green Limmat River, Zurich initially creates a pleasant but not particularly earth-shattering impression. It’s clean, has a subtle, mountain-ringed beauty and doesn’t shout about its huge wealth. Popular philosopher Alain de Botton, who was born and spent a happy childhood here, calls it ‘one of the great bourgeois cities of the world’ and admits not everyone will take that as the sincere compliment and tribute to egalitarianism it’s meant to be.

However, it doesn’t take long to unearth what high-profile resident Tina Turner has termed Zurich’s ‘life-loving’ side.

At the lake on its southern edge each summer, people can be seen escaping the 42-hour working week, swimming, sunning themselves and having barbecues with friends. There’s a Mediterranean feel as teams of young men, black and white, play football near the eye-catching Le Corbusier pavilion (the famous Swiss architect’s last building) and the old-fashioned, wooden-pier ‘baths’ – such as the Frauenbad/Barfussbar, Seebad Enge and Utoquai – offer therapeutic massages, saunas and after-hours drinks.

In a city where the dour Protestant reformer Huldrych Zwingli (1484-1531) once preached austerity in the twin-towered Grossmunster cathedral, groups now play frisbee in verdant parkland, while the paths are lined with cyclists and in-line skaters. Police have even patrolled the lakeside districts on roller-blades this past summer.

Scotsman Colin Tivendale, who works for technology and finance recruitment company Swisslinx, remembers being smitten on moving to Zurich three years ago. ‘For people who grew up here it’s just normal – living well, eating slightly healthy, the trams being on time, new things springing up all the time – but if you arrive from the UK you think ‘Oh my god, do people actually live like this?’

Someone from Mercer Human Resource Consulting must have been equally impressed. For five years the firm has rated Zurich’s quality of life as the world’s (sometimes joint) best.

The highlight of the party calendar is the mid-August ‘Street Parade’, a techno music celebration whose attendance figures have progressively overtaken Berlin’s now defunct Love Parade and even London’s Notting Hill Carnival to become the biggest in Europe in the past two years.

Now as autumn sets in, trendsetters are retiring to their prime stomping ground of Zurich-West. Near Escher-Wyss-Platz, a few tram stops west of the main train station, this once unappealing industrial quarter is now a base for new enterprises and a happening nightlife scene. Around the Technopark, a complex for IT start-ups, former warehouses are now occupied by eateries, bars, clubs, galleries, fashionable shops and cinema. The Schiffbauhaus, a former factory, houses one stunning bar/restaurant, La Salle, a panoramic bar called Nietturm and jazz club Moods. The one-time Löwenbräu brewery has been similarly converted. In fact, ‘Zuri-West’ stretches some way eastwards from its core ‘Kreis (district) 5’ back into the area around Langstrasse, where trendy bars like Acapulco and Liquid, restaurants like Cinque, Josef and Lily’s Stomach Supply and cinema club Riff Raff all mingle with kebab shops and the red-light district.

A few years ago, based on this nightlife boom, Wallpaper* magazine bravely declared Zurich Europe’s hippest city. ‘It’s as urban as Switzerland gets,’ says Marc Rudolf, of the Greater Zurich Area, an organisation designed to attract business to the region.

According to Rudolf, the transformation from a sleepy town to a vibrant ‘little big city’ has occurred in the last ten years, with the freeing up of brownfield developments for other uses and the liberalisation of restaurant planning laws. This allowed more pavement tables and late-night openings, and soon saw the number of dining, drinking and entertainment venues grow by more than one third to today’s nearly 2,000. ‘Many illegal bars have become legal and improvised theatres have become established. Zurich is also Switzerland’s cultural capital, leading young arts trends,’ asserts Rudolf.

Of course, though, however hard it now plays, Zurich very much remains a working city. Rudolf is keen to point out that the city and canton have a hinterland in technology, medicine and biotech. However with financial services such as banking and insurance at the core of its economy, Zurich punches well above its weight in all respects.

The Swiss Federal Office of Statistics calculates that the financial sector employs about 75,000 residents in the entire surrounding Canton of Zurich, or 10 percent of the workforce, while generating 30 percent of cantonal GDP. In both cases, this is twice the national average.

Similarly, according to the local Neue Zürcher Zeitung newspaper recently, the canton is home to about 16 percent of the Swiss population, but contributes 25 percent to the national coffers. More than 25 per cent of global asset management occurs in Zurich, prompting The Economist’s moniker of ‘the world’s piggybank’.

With Germany one of its largest trading partners, the Swiss national economy hasn’t been immune to knock-on effects from the sluggish eurozone. However, Swiss growth has been keeping about a half a percentage point ahead of its neighbours’, according to the OECD, and as Tivendale puts it ‘the fundamentals are just so strong’.

The Swiss have been seeking out new trade with Asia and the US, but at the same time finally feel comfortable enough about the European Union to vote earlier this year for closer political ties (although a second vote later this year will finally confirm this).

The year 2001 was Switzerland’s annus horribilus, when the national airline Swissair went bankrupt and there were scandals about both alleged terrorist and WWII Jewish bank accounts. However, the national psyche seems to have recovered from those body blows. ‘2001, what was that?’ jokes Rudolf when quizzed about the subject.

Today, expat Tivendale says he appreciates the understated, low-key manner of the Swiss and, having also become ensconced in the football and paragliding scenes, believes the more you delve, the more ask people for personal tips about Zurich, the better the place gets.

Certainly wandering down the much-vaunted shopping street of Bahnhofstrasse – which isn’t quite paved with gold but has bank vaults of the stuff running beneath it – you appreciate the quiet self-confidence of the place.

Sometimes, though, it’s still hard not to smile about how comfortable it all seems. In one of the city’s many free public toilets, someone has defiled an otherwise relatively pristine white-tiled wall by neatly scribbling ‘Ich liebe das Leben’ (I love life) in small letters. Another piece of graffiti near the ETH, Switzerland’s famous Federal Institute of Technology where Einstein once taught physics, reads: ‘Schön ist Zürich’ (Zurich is beautiful). Even its disaffected youth seem unwilling to complain too much about Zurich these days.

5 things to see and do
The Fraumunster Cathedral – marvel at Marc Chagall’s extraordinary stained-glass windows
The Kunsthaus – stick-figure sculptures by Alberto Giacometti are one highlight
Fluntern Cemetery – pay your respects to James Joyce or admire nearby views
Uetliberg – another panoramic view, stretching to the Alps on a clear day
A lake cruise – relax on a steamer on Zurich’s expansive lake

5 places to stay
Hotel Plattenhof (044 251 1910; www.plattenhof.ch; Plattenstrasse 26) New design hotel, with low beds, in a vaguely Japanese style, plus mood lighting

Hotel Greulich (043 243 4243; www.greulich.ch; Herman Greulich Strasse 56) Stark, off-white rooms laid out in a row like bungalows

Bar Hotel Rössli (044 256 7050; www.hotelroessli.ch; Rössligasse 7) Cosy but stylish central hotel

Hotel Zurichberg (044 268 3535; www.zuerichberg.ch; Plattenstrasse 21) One 19th and one award-winning 20th century building, atop a hill with fantastic views

Widder (044 224 2526; www.widderhotel.ch; Rennweg 7) Eight former houses now contain jaw-dropping luxury rooms, plus a bar famous for its jazz music

5 places to eat
Tibits (044 260 3222; Seefeldstrasse 2) Gourmet vegetarian buffet with benches for solo diners

La Salle (044 258 7071; Schiffbaustrasse 4) Huge glass cube serving upmarket mainly Italian cuisine

Angkor (043 205 2888; Giessereistrasse 18) Wooden carvings, chic clientele and south-east Asian cuisine

Blindekuh (044 421 5050; Mühlebachstrasse 148) Eat in the dark and get a small taste of what it’s like to be blind

Kronenhalle (044 251 6669; Rämistrasse 4, corner of Bellevue) Formal old establishment with original works by Chagall, Kandinsky and Picasso on the walls

5 places for a drink
Hard One (044 444 1000; Heinrichstrasse 269) Trendy wine, spirits and cigar lounge, with panoramic windows over Zurich

Jules Verne Panorama Bar (044 211 1155; Uraniastrasse 9, entrance through Brasserie Lipp) Sixth-floor bare decorated like the inside of a hot-air balloon basket, with excellent views

Kaufleuten Bar (044 225 3340; Pelikanstrasse 18) The small lounge attached to Zurich’s ritziest club

Wings (044 268 4055; Limmatquai 54) Kitschly decorated with the cutlery, crockery and airline seats of defunct national carrier Swissair

Giesserei Werkstatt (044 205 1010; Birchstrasse 108) Sophisticated new cocktail bar, a bit off the beaten path

Unraveling Genoa

Posted on October 12, 2008February 4, 2011 by Charlotte Gill

It’s a sultry early August evening deep in the heart of Europe’s largest old town – the centro storico in Genoa, Northern Italy.

After a long afternoon siesta, noise levels are rising and the tiny medieval streets – or caruggi – ring with chatter and shouting. Wily old men throw back the shutters of their shops; children with jet black hair and long legs scamper among tall tenement buildings draped with drying linen; prostitutes pose openly on street corners. All around, the labyrinthine medieval centre hums with noise and activity.

A wander through Genoa’s medieval centre is a visceral but essential experience for a visitor to this most enigmatic of Italian cities – and one that conjures up parallels with another continent altogether: a souk in the heart of Marrakesh, perhaps, or Cairo. For, with the exception of Naples, Genoa lays claim to being Western Europe’s most exotic city. It is also Italy’s fifth largest city, and the country’s biggest port.

Henry James referred to Genoa as “the most winding, incoherent of cities, the most entangled topographical ravel in the world” – and his words ring equally true a century later. Home to 631,000 inhabitants, the city’s suburbs sprawl along the Ligurian coastline for 18 miles before the urban jungle gives way to the spectacular azure hinterland of the Italian Riviera.

After a long period of economic decline – prompted by heavy bombing of its steelworks and shipyards in World War II – Genoa has climbed out of the shadows in recent years and Genoese families are again moving back into the old town, drawn by its renewed cultural vigour and cleaned-up streets.

In 1992, the 500th anniversary of the voyage of Christopher Columbus – the city’s most famous occupant – saw the start of a massive 46 million euro city centre regeneration scheme. The government-funded programme breathed life and money into Genoa’s startling Renaissance palaces and tucked-away piazzas and the fruits of those years of labour are now evident all over the city.

But sitting alongside the Arabian Nights atmosphere of the old town, there is more contemporary side to Genoa: it is also a thriving business centre and a city with a rich cultural heritage. Over a decade of tender loving care has paid off and Genoa has never been in a better position to compete against Italy’s better-known business and tourist centres, Milan, Turin and Rome.

A wealth of cultural and tourist sites include spruced-up early Renaissance palazzi; churches boasting dazzling frescoes; Europe’s largest aquarium; and a revitalised old port area.

For the business visitor the attractions are no less. The city now boasts 17 four star, and 27 three star hotels, and conference rooms capable of holding between 50 and 7500 delegates. In the last five years the major Spanish hotel chain AC Hotels has opened a 139-room hotel in the city. The Hotel Jolly Marina, boasting a stunning port-side location, is another new arrival on Genoa’s hotel scene – and next year will see a brand new Best Western Porto Antico vying for the business and tourist pound, located immediately in front of the Jolly Marina.

Paola Guccione, Genoa’s organising secretariat at the city’s Convention Bureau, says the city’s position between the sea and the mountains, and its location on the cusp of northern Europe and the Mediterranean, all add to the city’s commercial and leisure strengths.

Guccione explains: “Genoa’s excellent hotel accommodation and conference areas are situated in strategic and easily reachable locations. The city is one of the most important ports in Europe both commercially and also for the cruise ship and ferry traffic, and the international airport is only 15 minutes outside the city centre. It also has a very efficient railway connections and motorway links connecting it with the most important Italian and European cities.”

So where should a first-time visitor, with some time to spare, begin his or her discovery of Genoa? The first thing to remember is that, for all its rewards, this is a sprawling, complex, noisy city – as with its southern cousin, Naples, visitors tend to either love it, or hate it. The secret to exploring Genoa is, if time allows, to ease into it slowly, and with an open mind.

The old town is as good a place as any to start. The maze of narrow streets can be confusing, overwhelming and fascinating in equal measure – a rewarding approach is to forget about the map and just get lost, although solo female travellers should be wary about exploring parts of the old town at night and during the quiet siesta hours.

Via Garibaldi, lined with elegant, stuccoed mansions of the seventeenth century Genoese aristocracy, is as good a place as any to start an exploration of the old town. Here you’ll find Galleria di Pallazzo Bianco, Genoa’s finest art gallery – home to van Dyck’s Christ and Caravaggio’s Ecce Homo – and Palazzo Rosso, now restored to its former baroque splendour.

From Via Garibaldi it’s a stone’s throw from the huge seventeenth century Palazzo Reale in Via Balbi. The Cathedral of San Lorenzo, built by workers from Pisa, Lombardy and France and distinguished by its black and white striped façade and doorways crafted from multicoloured marble, is the old town’s other must-see monument.

At some point, however, you will emerge, blinking, into the very different, thoroughly modern world of the Porto Antico. Genoa’s waterfront promenade was revitalised during the 1990s and now boasts cafes, bistros, a cinema, exhibition spaces and – symbol of modern Genoa – the vast and impressive aquarium, Europe’s largest.

The quayside is a pleasant place to pass the time and its sea vistas and sharp modernity makes for a stark contrast to the dark, Dickensian jumble of the old town. The centrepiece is the curious-looking Bigo, a crane-like structure that hauls visitors 60m above the harbour, giving them panoramic views of the city.

As in anywhere in Italy, eating out in Genoa is a joy, and Genoa’s province, Liguria, is home to the famous sauce pesto, and the now international Slow Food movement. Good quality, simple food is the order of the day, and recipes, often based on peasant cooking, are based on olive oil, pasta, and fresh vegetables. Genoese cuisine is also influenced by the arab world – look out for torte & farniata, a hearty chick peak tart.

For those with a little more time to spare, Genoa’s final trump card is its location in the centre of the spectacular, palm-studied coastline of the Italian Riviera.

Regular, trains and boats from Genoa run to Noli, Nervi, Camogli, Santa Margherita and Portofino – all of which make for a hugely enjoyable daytrip from the city. With more time still, the stunning Cinque Terre towns of Monterosso, Vernazza and Riomaggiore, around two hours away by train, are the scenic highlights of the whole Riviera.

Looking to the future, Genoa’s immediate challenge is to build on the commercial and tourism opportunities opened by its status as 2004 European City of Culture. The city is more outward-looking now than in recent history and its jazzed-up quayside and renovated old town make for a compelling proposition. Whether for business or pleasure, there has never been a better time to visit.

Genoa: general facts
Population: 631,000
Hotel rooms: 1800 four star and a thousand three-star.
Major exhibition/conference areas:
Fiera Internazionale di Genova, seating up to 900
Teatro Carlo Felice, seating up to 2000.
Mazda Palace stadium, 5000 seats
Cotone Congressi Genova, 1500 seats
Aquarium, 1200 seats
Genoa was European City of Culture in 2004, and hosted the G8 summit in 2001.

Travel
By train: Genoa has two main train stations: Principe, on Piazzaa Acquaverde, for services North Italy and Europe – and Brignole on Piazza Verdi, for services to South Italy and the eastern Riviera.

By plane: Genoa’s international airport, Christoper Columus, is 6km from the centre, and has daily flight connections with most major European airports, including London, Munich, Paris and Zurich. A taxi should cost under £15.

Better business travel: From fish class to first class

Posted on October 12, 2008February 4, 2011 by Charlotte Gill

As an introduction to business travel goes it could hardly have been less glamorous. “This is the last van they had,” explained the singer, “we should have got there earlier. That stench comes from the fact that this van has already been out since 6am delivering fish.”

It was a hot Saturday lunchtime in Manchester in the mid Eighties and I was about to travel to Scotland on a three day tour with the little known pop group Big Flame. It was a commission for a now defunct music paper called Sounds. It was work, my first job and I was already horribly aware that in those days the van was not only the transport but quite often the accommodation too. It’s fair to say that by the time, ten years later, I had graduated to flying round Europe and America with U2 in their own private Jumbo jet, on a cover story commission for the Sunday Times Magazine, I had absolutely no qualms about enjoying the highlife. To this day the memory of sleeping in the back of the van between a roadie and a mic stand is still more vivid than slipping into a champagne induced snooze between two gorgeous looking air hostesses.

If you’re lucky, business travel can be a euphemism for swanning around the world enjoying the finest things an expense account can buy. If you’re unlucky you’re confined to the road-going equivalent of a trawler. I, as you now know, have had the pleasure of experiencing both.

In the early days as a music writer I never considered it business travel. The New Musical Express, where I had become Features Editor, would be constantly invited to travel all over the world to write nice things about rock and roll bands. A PR would buy your normal class ticket to America, pay for you to stay in pretty normal hotels, and all you had to do was get to the airport on time, be nice to the PR, have a few drinks with the band, and come home after a few gigs.

It’s fair to say I was rude to the PR, rowed with the bands, got terribly drunk and missed half the gigs. But aside from the good times I struggled with the travel. Before the launch of the Paddington Express getting to LHR by public transport was tedious, especially if you only left yourself thirty minutes to do the hour long journey. There’s a sign at Leicester Square Tube claiming it’s 47 minutes on the Picadilly Line to Terminal 4.That’s presumeably without the legions of tourists who get on and block the doors with their outsize bags in the museum district of London. Sprinting down the long distance walkways to the terminals is a hot and tiresome affair. After a while I gave up carrying luggage because it would just slow me up on this leg of the journey. I thought nothing of arriving in New York mid summer in a thick black suit looking for the nearest cheap army and navy to buy some clothes and a bag to put them in.

This was pretty much standard travel procedure for me for most of my twenties. Ill prepared, ill at eased and poor. The whole thing was a pain in the arse and transatlantic flights were only improved by the knowledge that every time I got to JFK Airport I could get out my own company Amex and book the ten minute chopper flight from the TWA terminal into Manhattan. Missing planes, not being able to read departure boards because glasses were broken, sitting hot and sweaty in tight uncomfortable seats upholstered in cheap man mad fabrics. The memory of all of these problems were washed away by the sound of those blades chopping up the air on the tarmac, welcoming me in to a big comfy seat with my name on it. Sixty dollars it cost but as far as I was concerned it was the best journey in the world..

Once I ‘d launched my magazine, loaded, and it had become a hit, one of the first things I implemented was a significant increase in the standard of business travel. It didn’t matter if there were five of us going to Argentina or Australia ; and there frequently were, it was a car or two to collect us at both ends, business or club or whatever they called it, lounges, good hotels the lot. I was still happy to sleep in a cave floor or in some woods if the story demanded it but as far as I was concerned as soon as we started travelling faster tha man can walk we would be doing it in extreme comfort and style. It’s fair to say that our company was not the best if you were a fellow passenger, loud, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life never mind customs. But we predated Air Rage Offences and only once was I peeled from the plane in a wheelchair.

Nowadays if there’s no choice in the matter I’ll take a bed in whatever shape or form it’s presented. You can only eat cake for so long before you get use to it, your ego ceases to be excited about such trivial matters, and so long as you can get your head down and a decent meal that should do. That’s if you have no choice in the matter. The point is. Once you’ve skipped through your early thirties and you’ve long since stopped comparing your age to your wage you should have all the choice in the world.

I recently travelled to New York for a lunch with a client that involved him putting me up at the Mercer for four days and taking me over there in Virgin Upper. I liked that. It made up for the vans that smelt of fish. The hotel has a boutique feel and a clientele you can either watch in the foyer or on the DVDs in your bedroom. There’s an Apple store next door which is handy for presents. From the start of my journey I was picked up at my house and deposited through the back door fast track Virgin operate. In the Lounge I bumped into one of my best friends who was on his way to a music festival. Strangely we were both flying to New York, to the same hotel and were sitting next to each other. He started out as a tour manager back in the seventies, now he runs a famous worldwide record business. As he settled back into his Virgin bed I looked over the divide and asked him, “did you ever sleep between a roadie and a mic stand.” And his eyes lit up in a horrified flashback.

You’ve a long life a head of you, make it your business to travel in style, but never forget where you started out. That way the comfort feels even better.

Raw Reykjavik

Posted on October 12, 2008February 4, 2011 by Charlotte Gill

Iceland brings you face-to-face with nature in the raw. It is rugged and rewarding, with probably the greatest variety of stunning scenery and unspoilt wilderness of any European destination.

Fly into Reykjavik’s airport at Keflavik, 30 miles west of the capital city, and you find yourself plunged into a dramatic, dazzling landscape ranging from the surreal to the sublime. There are rust-red craters, cobalt-blue lakes and huge areas of luminous green moss punctuating a sea of black sand.

Against a backdrop of shimmering ice, the air is so clear and crisp that the views seem to stretch forever. You can drink from some of the cleanest rivers on the planet and marvel at cascading waterfalls. Rivers lead to a coast where there are sandy beaches, rugged cliffs and tranquil fjords thronging with birds. Off shore, six species of whale and dolphin regularly captivate tourists on whale-watching trips.

And it’s not just a centre for tourists and travellers. These days, more and more corporate groups are choosing Reykjavik’s renowned Blue Lagoon geothermal spa for their conferences. The logic is difficult to fault. For generating fresh and imaginative ideas, and banishing stale or jaded attitudes, it’s the perfect set-up.

Businessmen can gather in the 100-seater conference room in a theatre setting, hold a seminar in one of two large meeting rooms with a combined capacity of 600 or use the fully-equipped executive board room.
Then, with business completed, they can catch up with fellow delegates by sharing a dip in the relaxing waters or having an invigorating and expert massage.

Blue Lagoon was this year voted the best medical and thermal spa in the world – ahead of France’s Royal Park Evian and Clinique La Prairie in Switzerland – by readers of Conde Nast Traveller.

Iceland is a small country, just a little bigger than Portugal, with a population of 294,000 (about the same as the city of Nottingham), and more than half of these, about 180,000, live in bustling Reykjavik. Scotland is only 496 miles away to the southeast, with Norway 601 miles to the east.

Reykjavik, which lies on a small peninsula on the southwest coast of Iceland, symbolises the “new Iceland.” It is a city with more than its fair share of wealthy entrepreneurs who have already proved themselves on the European stage. They have driven an amazing reversal of fortunes in a short period. In the late 1980s, Iceland was a highly regulated and restricted nation most famous for its fishing industry, with cod the basis of the republic’s economy. Now, though, it is dominated by services, with an adventurous, innovative new breed of technology companies.

Running parallel to Iceland’s industrial prosperity, the tourist trade has developed sufficiently in the last two decades to give the economy a healthy boost.

This combination has, of course, had an effect on property prices. Reykjavik is now enjoying being a fashionable destination – a buzzing holiday spot with a difference. Bjork, the pop singer with the quirky voice, is the city’s most famous celebrity but British stars Damon Albarn, lead singer of Blur, and Jarvis Cocker are both regular visitors. Albarn even has a part share in a popular town centre bar.

The in-place for young trendies and City workers is the 101 district, a sort of Notting Hill with icicles, which is full of boutiques, bars, delicatessens and desirable pads built against a backdrop of a ragged snow range of volcanoes.

It’s no wonder it is popular. With all manner of snow sports just half an hour away, it is a unique mixture of city culture, partying through the night and wild adventure.

Fishing and cross-country skiing are very popular and the long summer days have led to a passion for golf Viking-style. In mid-summer it is almost light enough to play golf for 24 hours solid, and people regularly tee off at midnight.

Estate agent Oskar Sigurthsson, of Eignaval Real Estate, reckons the climate is a major force behind a boom in property investment by foreigners.

“It feels like Christmas all year round,” he says.

The knock-on effect has been a rise of 20 percent in the price of property over the last 12 months.

The introduction of a daily Iceland Express flight from Stansted, with one-way prices from as little as £68, has led to a 50 percent increase in air traffic between Britain and Iceland in the past year.

With a flight time of only three hours, many British tourists are attracted to Reykjavik because it has all the usual attractions of a modern European city combined with an interesting old town.

Not only is Reykjavík the world’s northernmost capital, it is also one of the newest, not having established itself until the late 19th century. However, Iceland’s traditions go back to medieval times. It was settled by Norwegian, Scottish and Irish immigrants during the late 9th and 10th centuries and boasts the world’s oldest parliament, the Althing, established in the year 930AD.

Reykjavik was European Capital of Culture in 2000 and on the back of that success it has developed tourism in the city to an impressive degree. Where it once used to be a base for nature-lovers exploring Iceland’s spectacular scenery or the elderly soaking their aching bones in bubbling mineral spas, it is now an ideal venue for the young. Hence the popularity of the place with the likes of Albarn and Cocker.

The adventurous tourist has a wide choice of challenging attractions. They include glacier trekking, climbing, salmon fishing, sailing and whale-watching – but all within easy reach of the capital and its five-star hotels.

Reykjavik boasts an excellent range of restaurants, with fresh seafood, succulent lamb and wild game on most menus. The city also has a reputation for being one of Europe’s liveliest places at night, with an active music scene.

For visitors seeking culture, Reykjavik’s galleries, museums and theatres provide a vibrant and sophisticated all-year artistic programme, with festivals, exhibitions and stage productions. Musical presentations this year have ranged from Placido Domingo to Duran Duran.

What about the weather? Well, the climate of Iceland is warmer than the name suggests, thanks to the Atlantic Gulf Stream. Summers are mild and daily temperatures can fluctuate from a minimum of 5C at night to a maximum of 25C in the day.

For two to three months in the height of the summer there is continuous daylight. The really dark period, with only three to four hours of daylight, lasts from mid-November until the end of January.

Iceland is one of the best places in the world to view the Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights, the beautiful greenish and dynamic luminous displays that fill the night sky. They are most visible in autumn and spring.

To reach the geothermal pools, about 40 minutes from Reykjavik, you drive through a landscape of lava fields and volcanoes where NASA send trainee astronauts to get a feel for lunar terrain. The thermal waters that abound contain a cocktail of minerals and blue-green algae which are said to relax and stimulate both body and soul.

Reykjavik prides itself on the fact that it has Europe’s cleanest air and water, something that may contribute to the city having Europe’s highest life expectancy (78 for men, 82 for women). What better recommendation is there than that? Iceland, the geographical equivalent of a life giving elixir.