Diary notes from Jamie Knights, online editor 

 

Tuesday 2nd February

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Les Clefs d'Or is holding its UAE General Assembly meeting this afternoon at Kempinski Mall of the Emirates. Unfortunately unable to attend, but will be interviewing Randy V. Santos president of Dubai Concierge Group and Les Clefs d'Or UAE tomorrow to find out what the issues were and what the organisation has in store for the coming months.

Louise Oakley and Lucy Taylor attended the Hot Hoteliers event on Sunday evening at The Roof Top One& Only Royal Mirage Dubai. Apparently it was a great evening with a session focused on how to network to get referrals. Look out for the photos which should be up by the end of the day.

Little heads up for all you stock market buffs. Starwood is set to announce its 2009 Q4 results on Thursday. 

Finally, revenue and occupancy data has been finalised for the whole of 2009. To have a look at some of the key findings click here.

Tuesday 26th January

Have put up the piece on Zighi Bay's Build a Smile package. It was a great experience and I would like to thank the team down there for the opportunity. To read about it, see pics and watch a video click here. 

A reminder to everyone that the Hot Hoteliers event that was postponed due to bad weather will be taking place  at the Roof Top One & Only Royal Mirage Dubai on January 31at 07:30 PM. 

Click here to check out the Hot Hoteliers' website.

Was working yesterday on a Top 10 celebrities we would like to see open hotels in the region and 10 we wouldn't. The Spice Girls were in the second category and low and behold the next day we hear Posh Spice has been offered a hotel deal in Dubai. 

The way she behaved in the video for that zig-a-zig-ah song, running over tables and teasing the staff, we can only hope she has learned a lot more about hospitality since then, otherwise the project will be a disaster. 

By the way, if anyone has any questions or wants to get stuff off their chest, please feel free to comment. 

Sunday 24th January

Interviewed Bob Knott, senior development manager of golf courses for Jumeirah Golf Estates about the new Fire course. I was lucky enough to get to play it last week and I can tell you all the bunkers work perfectly. It's great to see new courses coming to Dubai, but it is such a shame that there are no cheap courses for golf enthusiasts.

I understand completely why it is, the cost of maintaining a course in these conditions is astronomical. Guess I will have to wait for the next media day freebie! 

The hospitality team is starting to turn its attention to the dreaded show season! Gulfood is going to be huge this year,(click here for details), The Hotel Show, AHIC, HOTEC, GIBTM and ATM are all looming on the horizon. We will of course be covering all of these and keeping you up to date with what is going on. 

Interesting news today from Layia Hospitality. It will be good to see how this works out for them.

One more thing, our diversions page has gone live today. If you click on the 'more' tab on our homepage and then click on diversions you get access to our games and our hospitality words of the day. Click here to take a look.  

Tuesday 19th January

Had two interviews this afternoon. The first was an American Mark Kuta who wrote the award winning business book Think Like a CEO. He has just released an audio CD on how to do business in America. He spoke to me about ways sales teams within hotels can attract the American market. Some useful stuff from an incredibly nice guy. Should have those tips for you up soon.

Then had the pleasure of interviewing Fairmont president Tom Storey. He was an absolute gentleman and spoke candidly about Fairmont and its plans in the region. It's always good when you get someone who tells it how it is. I was intrigued by the fact it is unlikely he will see the property in Makkah and the operational issues that need to be overcome. To read the story click here.

We did the interview in the Cavalli suite at the Fairmont and I managed to grab a quick look at the suite's nightclub upstairs.

To read the interview in full click here.