Connections, the new groundbreaking series of exclusive buyer-supplier forums from Travel Weekly Group, held its inaugural event for the luxury travel sector at the Four Seasons Hotel Hampshire, supported by Amadeus. Report by LEE HAYHURST and RUPERT MURRAY
Headline speaker Jason Atherton, with Micaela Giacobbe and Clive Jacobs (right), both Travel Weekly Group
Celebrity chef Atherton dishes out top advice
Celebrity chef Jason Atherton was the keynote speaker at the first Connections event. Atherton, who worked in some of the best restaurants in the world before starting his own restaurant empire, spoke about the need for passion to be a successful chef and for hotels to have a successful food and beverage (F&B) outlet. “You must have passion. Even if it’s just a coffee shop the person in the shop must be crazy about coffee. He must want to tell you about the beans and to make you the best coffee you’ve ever had. “That’s the competition today and it’s so fierce that if the standard isn’t up there you’re out.” Atherton was talking about the
growing trend for great hotels to team with great restaurateurs, adding: “More and more people talk about the food when they go away. It’s crucial to get it right.” He singled out the Mandarin Oriental in London for praise:
“Bar Boloud was a bed store. It’s now a hugely successful business. If I check in as a guest I see Daniel Boloud’s place as great for breakfast and meetings, and Heston Blumenthal is there too; it’s a beautiful hotel – I’m sold.” Atherton also told a story about the need for service consistency. “I’d had an amazing sandwich on a flight. It was only a sandwich but was done really well,” he said. “The following week we were flying with the same airline and I said to my wife ‘you’ve got to have the sandwich’. “But when it arrived it looked
and tasted nothing like the sandwich I’d had. Apparently it was because we had come out of a different destination. “That’s wrong. Consistency
in restaurants is the holy grail. I’ll think twice about ordering that sandwich now – and if I’m not consistent in my restaurants people will think twice about eating there again too.”
18 •
travelweekly.co.uk — 9 October 2014
‘Keep up with mobile’s march’
The mobile revolution will quickly engulf the luxury travel sector if it fails to keep pace with customer demands in the digital age. Ewan MacLeod, entrepreneur
and founder of the Mobile Industry Review website, said consumers had growing expectations that technology ought to improve their experience. He said most companies
weren’t putting mobile at the heart of their businesses, adding: “If you have a chief mobile officer or a mobile division you’ve got a real problem because the revolution’s happened already. Mobile is absolutely huge and most companies haven’t even recognised it yet – that’s why they are being disintermediated.”
SPECIAL REPORT
PHOTOS: MATT SPRAKE
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92