A Week in Las Vegas – Day 3 It used to be The Egg in Chicago. A perfect place for “Breakfast in America” – counter service, coffee and water upon arrival and a menu featuring eggs every way, waffles, pancakes and English muffins. I wanted the Las Vegas equivalent and tasked Moira Hearn with finding it… Read more »
Posts Tagged: Meetings Industry
A week in Las Vegas – Day 2
A week in Las Vegas – Day 2 Early this morning as the intensity of the cleaning, power hosing and sweeping along Las Vegas Boulevard seemed to increase, I had a blinding insight. I figured out where it all comes from. This is not WASP / Calvinist earnestness and endeavour but rather Catholic guilt and… Read more »
The Language of Business
The Language of Business by Padraic Gilligan, Managing Director, Ovation Global DMC Hilton has recently launched a really interesting app connected with its Garden Inn product. Called Bizwords it’s a combination game / educational resource pivoting around the acronyms and buzz words which, increasingly, punctuate our daily business discourse. Naturally Hilton slips a little self… Read more »
“Flash Mobs in Bangkok: is this Thailand?”
“Flash mobs in Bangkok: is this Thailand ?” by Padraic Gilligan, Managing Director, MCI Dublin and VP Ovation Global DMC I thought I was in the middle of a Flash Mob. It was evening rush hour and I had just gotten off the Skytrain. I could hear music playing all over the station and people… Read more »
Budapest is knocking on heaven’s door
“Budapest is knocking on heaven’s door” by Padraic Gilligan When the long haired buskers in the underpass are playing complex counterpoints by Bartok and Bernstein rather than “Knocking on Heaven’s Door” by Bob Dylan then you know you’re in Budapest. This is a city with a profound intellectual and cultural DNA which it carries naturally,… Read more »
Hero or Villain? What is the true identity of the DMC?
At an industry function recently I found myself seated between two agency executives. I spent a fascinating and frightening evening listening to war stories about their experiences with DMCs around the world. In roughly half of the stories the war in question was won as a result of incredible acts of heroism and valour on… Read more »
The all-new Las Vegas
My abiding memory of Las Vegas rotates around Moon Civetz’s company, Maverick Aviation Group. It was during the last Incentive Research Foundation (IRF) Invitational in 1995 when the IRF was still the Site Foundation and I was on the Site Board. Site CEO Brenda Anderson had persuaded me to accompany her on a helicopter ride… Read more »
All Aboard the Marrakech Express (‘cos the Times they are a changin’)
All Aboard the Marrakech Express (‘cos the times they are a changin’)* *with a nod to some great 60s tunes! [First published on the excellent, lively, vibrant and way-cool travel portal http://www.zipsetgo.com/] In 1962 – almost 50 years ago – Bob Dylan gave voice to a new generation and announced the “times they are a… Read more »
Singapore – a curious cat and mouse tale
by Padraic Gilligan For many of us in the Meetings Industry the major dread of any trip to Asia is the knowledge that most conversations about our business will be liberally peppered with “MICE”. And we’re not talking small rodents here, we talking acronyms – meetings, incentives, congresses and events. Despite our best efforts in… Read more »
Florence – how two old friends met after 32 years
by Padraic Gilligan, Vice President, Ovation Global I visited Florence for the first time courtesy of a small bursary from the Italian Government. I was 16 years old and still at school. 3 weeks there in 1976 brought life and meaning to a plethora of exotic, rarefied names and words from Geography, History and art… Read more »