Guernsey, understandably, is somewhat of a hub for offshore banking and many of the major finance houses have offices on the channel island. It’s fair to say most days will find business travellers flying to and from the mainland. The two main airlines are Flybe and Aurigny.com
Islanders boast there’s enough restaurants to dine in a different one every day of the year. Well, I didn’t count them, but here’s a particular highlight:
We visited Guernsey’s only Michelin-starred restaurant, Christophe.
Its large terraces make the most of its position: at the top of Fermain Bay near St Peter Port, with lofty, panoramic sea views.
We had the Gourmand menu, which according with chef/proprietor Christophe Vincent’s seasonal philosophy changes every three months. Each course is paired with a wine – the wine depends on whether you choose the £60 or £85 per-head option.
Our first course of foie gras ballotine with fig compote paired perfectly a sweet aromatic glass of Grand Cru Classe Sauternes. The foie gras and compote actually went better with bread and butter than the accompanying piece of crispy gingerbread, which made a slightly too-sweet combination.
This was followed by an asparagus and morel risotto: creamy rice, rich fragrant stock and intense mushrooms. Again it was complemented the by grassy bouquet of the New Zealand wine Clos Henri Sauvignon Blanc 2007. The rack of lamb was perfectly pink and tasty with a glossy translucent jus, though I wasn’t sure about the drops of mint oil – for me it conjured up aromatherapy rather than dinner.
In French style, cheese was served before dessert. The loaded trolley bore an excellent range of pungently mature Guernsey, French and Spanish choices, served with a wonderfully deep and complex 2006 Kalleske JMK fortified Shiraz from South Australia’s Barossa Valley.
A distinctive palate-cleanser bridged the gap between cheese and pudding: an orange sorbet with olive oil and salt, which somehow evoked a refreshing summer salad.
Yet another unusual and delicious vino was served with pudding: Elysium Black Muscat from California’s Quady Winery accompanied an artfully deconstructed “Rhubarb and Custard”.
View of Parliament from Castle Hill on the Buda side of the Danube
I’m just back from a trip to Hungary’s capital Budapest,checking out hotels for ttgluxury. I visited several fine hotels in the city, different in style but they all had things in common: they’re all finding the current climate a challenge, and consequently offering excellent rates and deals. And, they all to varying degrees have business traffic as a significant part of revenue.
Budapest is a 2.5 hour flight from the UK. We flew with national carrier Malev from Gatwick(from £87.70 inc taxes, business class £341.70 ). Business class gets you the Aviance lounge at Gatwick and the comfortable Malev lounge at Budapest airport, with bar, nice snacks and free Wifi − plus friendly, attentive service onboard and rather palatable Hungarian bubbly.
The city is actually two – Buda and Pest, joined by name but split by the mighty river Danube, on its 2,850km route from Germany to the Black Sea.
Budapest is a dazzling showcase of architectural styles, from Baroque to Bauhaus via Arts Nouveau and Deco. Some buildings are meticulously restored, others crumbling and pocked with bullet holes from the 1956 uprising.
Museum of Fine Arts
There’s plenty to keep delegates entertained when not working: river cruises, traditional thermal spas, countless world-class museums, a busy year-round cultural programme, great walks and cycle rides and buzzing night life. Find out more here
InterContinental
With its brand-new executive Club lounge facilities and vast conference floor with multiple layout options, the 400-room InterContinental is the obvious choice for corporates. The 1960s block is no architectural gem but is in a beautiful spot right on the banks of the Danube in the heart of the city with wonderful views.
Another modern five-star option is the Kempinski Hotel Corvinus, with state-of-the art conference facilities and separate reception for 450 delegates. When I visited, a gleaming S-class Mercedes stood centre-stage in the lobby, to demonstrate how the hotel can incorporate promotional events such as car launches.
There’s also the stunningly palatial BoscoloNew YorkPalace, and for smaller events (80 capacity theatre-style) the Bauhaus-style boutique Andrassy Hotel. The Andrassy’s location among most of the city’s embassies and close to several corporate headquarters ensures a steady flow of business traffic.
For exclusive and memorable events, the landmark, exquisitely restored ArtNouveauFourSeasonsGreshamPalace says business traffic makes a small but significant portion of its revenue.
What is the carbon footprint of the G20 summit? Of this, a fascinating factor is what the CO2 levels of president Obama’s London visit are: that 747 (Airforce One), his 500-strong retinue, all the preceding support flights bringing battalions of SUVs, helicopters and of course ‘the Beast’ – the 3.5 tonne bomb-proof Cadillac limo.
Surprisingly none of the eco-warriors seem to be publishing calculations on this – anyone know?
Please share this info with us!
And another factor – how much is G20 costing? Figures being tossed around are in the region of £20 million. Ironic that at a time when the business travel and meetings and events sectors are thoroughly debating cutting down and video conferencing options, the big daddy of all meetings is being staged. I guess budgeting considerations are different when the global taxpayer is footing the bill…
OK, let me explain the title: Weerasak refers to Weerasak Kowsurat, chairman of Tourism Authority of Thailand board of directors. I met him during a recent press trip to Bangkok. We were on the 55th floor of the Centara Grand hotel, where the Red Sky bar and restaurant boast stunning views over the multi-hued neon cityscape.
Weerasak told me he’s optimistic about visitors to Thailand in 2009, despite the setbacks of global recession and last year’s airport protests. He says he expects 14 million visitors during 2009 – including plenty of Brits.
“We understand British visitors, and we know they value the genuine friendliness and care that is the core of Thai hospitality. And a key factor is the value for money Thailand offers – we know how important this is during these times.”
He also pointed out that the Skytrain extension to the airport would be open on August 12.
This should be a welcome improvement to travelling into the city, as traffic is appalling.
The Centara adjoins the Bangkok Convention Centre and on the 22nd floor you can walk straight from hotel to the vast multi-space auditoria which can merge to host a maximum of 6,000 delegates theatre style.
Also impressive is Lifestyle on the 26th floor, with spa, decent sized gym, panoramic pool with bar and gardens, plus two tennis courts.
Which brings us to the wine angels – abseiling up and down the spectacular glass two-story wine cellar at The Red Sky bar and restaurant on Fifty Five, to pluck fine vintages from the upper shelves.
Check out luxury travel news & views at ttgluxury.com
A good spot to meet up for business and pleasure: Le Pont de la Tour, in the lively Shad Thames area, with views of Tower Bridge and over the river to the City.
Just visited for lunch and to meet up with head chefLee Bennett – a Yorkshire lad with a stellar CV, which includes lengthly stints in Paris and at Gordon Ramsay’s restaurants in London and Dubai.
The food was memorable and delicious – more of that later. First the business: meetings can be hosted in the atmospheric brick-vaulted wine cellar – private in the evenings when it’s not serving as the wine shop; and the Salon Prive, which can hold up to 22 and features a laptop-compatible wide plasma screen. They can arrange menus from simpler table d’hote lunches to multi-course tasting menu feasts.
We sampled a mouth-watering range from the a la carte: we started with a quirky seafood platter − frothy lobster bisque with a hint of Pernod served in an espresso cup, fresh raw scallop briefly marinated in tangy citrus juice, a three-layer chilli prawn cocktail topped with watercress mousse, oyster en gelee, native potted crab with dill butter…
Then a mid-course of John Dory in a rich saffron squid broth, followed by some meltingly tender lamb shoulder with haricot beans in a rich jus, creamy risotto topped with oxtail… there were two of us sharing this by the way − before accusations of ‘fat bastard’ start flying…
Well OK, there was pudding as well: forced rhubarb with bavarois cream topped with strawberry ‘cloud’ and fragrant Rosemary shortbread, an aromatic basil and mint ice cream… Yes we were pretty stuffed.
The restaurant has had a clean, crisp revamp and shed some of its pompous old-school Parisienne image, with less eye-watering prices – though as it’s still an iconic London venue and couldn’t be described as cheap.
Definitely worth considering as a distinctive place to do business, just a river crossing away from the tumult of the City.
The 02, formerly known, loved and hated as the Millenium Dome: it was a Tory white elephant inherited by Labour who waded in with similar hubris and incompetence to get it sorted by December 31, 1999. Nine years later and it seems to be the epicentre and symbol of regeneration and development in south-east London.
By the way this is just an excuse to feature the rather appalling video below, which is an experiment: I am reviewing a Flip Ultra camcorder for ttgbusiness, and wanted to see how easy it is to shoot something, upload it and add it to my blog.
Anway, it worked pretty well, although I don’t think Danny Boyle will be losing any sleep.
The Dome was born on a toxic wasteland next to the southside of the Blackwall Tunnel, and grew up to be the first billion-pound tent, a monstrous joke at the taxpayers’ expense (though actually it was mainly Lottery money). One of New Labour’s first major embarassements, who can forget a boot-faced Queen enduring a ghastly new year’s eve, dragooned into singing Auld Lang Syne with Tony Blair?
Since being removed from the clutches of blundering politicians, it’s become a highly credible major entertainment venue.
There’s been some headline-grabbing shows here, from the Rolling Stones to Prince, as well as art exhibitions such as Tutenkhamun, and it’s one of the main Olympics venues. It should also be high on the radar for the MICE industry.
And there’s so much construction going on around the 02 it could soon be blocked from the east London skyline.
But the Tories are throwing a bigger spanner in the works: they vow to pull the plug on the project if they get into government – this was said categorically by shadow transport secretary Theresa Villiers on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
Surely this must be a bigger threat than the likes of Emma Thomson and Zac Goldsmith buying parcels of land in fields near the Sipson – the village earmarked for bulldozing to make way for the runway.
I expect most political pundits would say all bets are off at the moment as to who would win the next election and when that will be. But they’d probably say the Tories have a fair chance of winning.
This raises a whole bunch of interesting questions for the project. What will happen to the massive amount of commercial contracts signed off by then if the projects already underway?
Participating companies would presumably already invested millions. Is this going to put firms off bidding?
What if compulsory purchase orders for the site have already been completed?
And does this mean they will give stronger support to a new estuary airport? – as proposed by London Mayor Boris Johnson
The press are busy today adding a showbiz splash of celebrity names to the Heathrow airport expansion furore – a much-needed dash of colour to the Hounslow concrete grey of this story.
Oscar-winning actress Emma Thompson and comedian Alistair McGowan are among those buying up land which will be needed by BAA for the third runway. They’re adding their clout to a plan of action by Greenpeace.
The idea is that completing compulsory purchase orders on all these tiny plots of land, with their disparate owners around the world will be a Herculean task for the government.
It’s kind of cunning I suppose, but also rather depressing – rather than changing the path of global CO2 emissions and climate change, it just means the Heathrow expansion will take longer and be more expensive.
Meanwhile, in the fraught intervening years, Heathrow and its surrounding environs will just carry on being increasingly polluted, congested, dysfunctional and miserable. Great.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Why not just build another bloody airport!? Instead of tinkering around with this 70-year-old edifice that was originally conceived in the Jurassic era of air travel. Like those many other countries, which have a more creative, forward thinking, can-do attitude towards air travel.
Typosquatting – this is a new one on me. Apparently these typosquatters buy up domain names that are common misspellings of popular/big brand URLs.
So unsuspecting punters land on these sites, which are designed to – this is according to McAfee security analyst Greg Day, who may be inclined to paint a gloomy scenario: “generate click-through advertising revenue, lure unsuspecting consumers into scams, harvest email addresses in order to flood unsuspecting internet users with unwanted email and can even result in malware infections.”
So watch your typos, people.
Day offers some simple advice: if you’re not sure of the correct URL, use a search engine instead of guessing. He also says that because of these squatters, there are around 8,000 URLs using “iPhone’. Amazing.
But how much of a problem is this? I’ve never knowingly landed on one of these bogus sites, and I am a very carless typisst.
Have you ever been affected? – Let us know your experiences: please comment below
Oh, and latest news, the scammers are descending on Twitter now.
One thing for sure is that the global plague of internet spammers, scammers and crooks has made information security into a massive business.
Happy new Year to Lithuania’s capital, Vilnius. The city celebrated the start of its year as European Capital of Culture 2009 with an extravaganza of music, theatrics, lights and fireworks. Vilnius is also celebrating its millennium: the first time the city is mentioned is in chronicles from the year 1009.
I visited Vilnius last year on a Baltics press trip hosted by Reval Hotels, to write a feature for ttgbusiness
I’d not been to the region before, I think I was expecting some sort of grim, grey hangover from the soviet era.
What I found was an immaculately restored, Unesco world heritage site, packed with beautiful architecture and fascinating history, and brimming with optimism and confidence.
The Hotel Lietuva was symbolic of this new confidence: the 22-story tower was the old, KGB-bugged soviet Intourist hotel − now totally revamped into a slick, modern property with cool Scandinavian décor and state-of-the-art conference facilities.
The country has enthusiastically embraced the EU in its eagerness to cast off the shackles of its hulking neighbour. Initially it suffered a major brain drain as many of its bright youngsters fled to all points in western Europe. But people say there’s now a steady trickle back.
The excellent tourist guides are full of fascinating tales, from ancient empires through to Nazi horrors, then KGB antics and Cold War paranoia. But they are more keen to talk about Lithuania’s bright future, rather than dwell on the past.
Of course in the current economic climate, the country’s immediate future is as uncertain as everywhere else. But Vilnius is definitely a destination to watch.
The Centara adjoins the 
