Inflight Magazine of Brussels Airlines

Business trends

Boyd Farrow rounds-up what’s happening in the business world across Europe

Image Alamy

Traffic report

Dirty business

It may not be a huge surprise to travel-numbed business people or other halves suspicious of their partners’ willingness to be on the road all the time, but a recent survey shows that many people have company when they return to their hotel rooms on business trips. The survey, from the organisers of the Business Travel Show, asked 500 regular business travellers about their intimate habits. It found that 37% of respondents admitted to regularly cheating on their partners. Some 8% also admitted to having joined the mile-high club, again not with their partners.

On the other hand, many travellers who do not cosy up to a new partner will share the night with a colleague instead. According to another survey, by hotel chain Crowne Plaza, 62% of business travellers have taken their BlackBerry to bed in case a work email comes through during the night. More tragically, a quarter of respondents admitted to sleeping with their BlackBerry every night.

Meanwhile, 37 MEPs from Denmark, Norway and Sweden are demanding that the hotels they use ban prostitutes. The Euro MPs are lobbying for hotels used by parliamentary staff to provide a sleaze-free certificate. In a letter to the parliament’s president, the signatories, including former Danish prime minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, demand that: “the European Parliament only use hotels which issue a guarantee that they are not involved in the sex trade, and that all staff have written guidelines on the issue.”

Drawing board

This year’s model

Beverly Hills-based OpenGate Capital, which describes itself as “an opportunistic private equity firm” (Is there any other sort?) is counting on an unusual set of figures to get it through the economic downturn. The company has just bought a majority share in Models 1, the largest modelling and talent agency in Europe, in a deal which values Models 1 at “less than €68m”, or a morning’s work for Agyness Deyn.

The London agency, which has just celebrated its 40th anniversary, currently represents Linda Evangelista, Yasmin Le Bon, Karolina Kurkova, Twiggy, Noemie Lenoir, Amber Valletta and Joanna Lumley, as well as “model of the year” Deyn.

Apparently this is only the first step on the catwalk for OpenGate, which has just created a new investment vehicle, One Worldwide, through which it says it will make more acquisitions in the world of fashion. Ah, yes, but what would Warren Buffet wear?

Prague seems to be ignoring the economic downturn with a vengeance. By the time you read this, the city’s first members-only club, LS, as well as the Buddha-Bar Hotel – which “emboldens the essence of contemporary modern Asian interior design with French colonial influence” – should have opened their doors. Buddha-Bar promises high-tech luxury rooms and state-of-the-art fitness and spa facilities, in an historic building steps away from the Old Town Square. Similarly laden with Asian influences, the LS also proves that PR guff is thriving like lotus flowers in the Czech Republic. Take this gem: “LS is… a space, a lifestyle, a community – a concept where quality is a philosophy and membership confers privilege”.

And it doesn’t stop there. Bookings are now being taken for Rocco Forte’s hotel, The Augustine, occupying a series of historic buildings, including a 13th-century monastery (there are still some Augustine friars living on the site). Thankfully, it doesn’t appear to be Asian influenced. The Tower Suite offers rooftop views of the Mala Straná area, where the hotel is situated, near Prague Castle and the Wallenstein Gardens. Indeed, The Augustine looks set to give the new Kempinski Hybernská a run for its money – assuming that tourists actually have any to spend!

Radar

New Model Army

Designers at Milan’s Autumn/Winter 09/10 menswear fashion week had the global financial crisis firmly on their minds, even without luxury giant Richemont Group reporting a 12% drop in third quarter sales – a sign that even the super-rich have stopped shopping. For example, Tomas Maier, creative director of the already anti-bling Bottega Veneta, said he took inspiration for his entire collection from the cardigan, adding knitted material in all sorts of odd places such as a bowtie or a coat collar. “When I get home at night, I put on my cardigan – it’s like 25 years old, it’s my favourite piece of clothing. It gives you that [element] of comfort and feel good,” he told the press. Meanwhile, showcasing “a quest for and a return to a quality of life in which the background hubbub and frantic pace of modern living melt away,” Giorgio Armani used green heavily for what he called an “eco-style” of fashion. “There are people who are seriously affected by this crisis,” he told reporters after his show. One person already affected by the crisis was David Beckham. The footballer, who has a lucrative contract with Armani, was sitting in the middle of the front row during a show for the entry-level Emporio line.

Upgrade your trip

Grand experiences

One of Switzerland’s grandes dames, the Park HotelWeggis (phw.ch) on the banks of Lake Lucerne, an hour’s drive from Zurich, has squarely targeted the younger set by opening a cutting-edge sister property: the Post Hotel Weggis (poho.ch). While both properties share a spa and wine cellar, the Post features an urban design and high-tech toys. All of the new hotel’s 45 “chill-out rooms” have lake-view balconies and come equipped with Playstation 3, Blu-ray players and LED-illuminated bathrooms. Meanwhile, Zurich’s Dolder Grand (thedoldergrand.com) reopened last year, after four years of restoration. Like the Park Hotel Weggis, The Dolder Grand has a Michelin-starred restaurant – called, with typical Swiss precision, The Restaurant. It features a huge, refrigerated ‘wine cube’, while chef Heiko Nieder’s menu uses once-surprising taste combinations, such as lobster with strawberries, beetroot and nasturtium, and gruyère with fig coffee.

Traffic report

All busy on the Eastern front

The Berlin real estate market may be suffering from the falling demand for properties, but there is an unlikely source of comfort – fashion-forward Muscovites. Until recently, the smart money was on rising property prices all over Berlin and estate agents in the city’s most sought-after areas have reported a 25% increase in property prices over the past four years. The cost of a one-bedroom flat in a prime location increased from about €50,000 in 1997 to about €125,000 by the end of 2008. Indeed, according to a report last March by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the Urban Land Institute, Berlin shot up from 25th place to 9th in the European real estate league table.

Property experts were particularly enthusiastic about apartments in Prenzlauer Berg, Mitte, Kreuzberg and Friedrichshain. However, while prices have slumped by 10% in many parts of Berlin, up-and-coming areas such as the much-hyped ‘Kreuzkölln’ neighbourhood – where the northern tip of Neukölln meets the southern edge of Kreuzberg at the Landwehrkanal – there are no signs of a downturn. In fact, Neukölln is proving immune to the financial crisis as prices were so low properties are only now rising to the market value. Other neglected areas include Wedding, where old buildings are selling for €1,300 per square metre. The only downside, of course, is that there are fewer buyers around.

Not really…

On the phone

Several software companies have jumped on the iPhone bandwagon, thrilled by both the phone’s popularity. One of the most successful is the start-up Tapulous, whose Tap Tap Revenge was the most popular free iPhone game of 2008. Belgian chief executive Bart Decrem says iPhone applications can be lucrative as they may take four people just three months to develop. Tap Tap Revenge is modelled on Xbox 360 console games that challenge players to keep rhythm with songs. Rock Band creator Harmonix says players have bought more than 30m songs. Each week, Tapulous releases new music from hot artists such as Katy Perry, who sold 50,000 copies of her song Hot N Cold via the game. Indeed, Tapulous recently collaborated with EMI on a version called Tap Tap Dance that includes tracks by Moby and Daft Punk, and has begun introducing paid versions of games for €3,50. Most of Tapulous’s revenue comes from ads that appear alongside the games.

Growing gains

Net profits

Huge Champions League earnings have allowed Europe’s top football clubs to kick aside the financial crisis. The 16 sides that qualified for the knockout phase, from seven European countries, will have won an average of nearly €40m, according to a survey commissioned by MasterCard, one of the competition’s sponsors. The biggest clubs with the largest fan bases like nine-times winners Real Madrid will fare even better, with prizes reaching over €46m. The winners of May’s final in Rome could earn up to €110m. “In uncertain economic times, sport’s universal appeal remains strong, making it one of the most lucrative industries to be involved in,” said the report’s author and sports business expert Professor Simon Chadwick. He points out that revenues earned from UEFA Champions League football come from various sources, including participation payments, prize money, a share of commercial revenues from the tournament, ticket sales, sponsorship and merchandise sales, food and drinks and “increased squad value”. He concluded that a team reaching the competition’s last 16 will earn on average €9.4m, from prize money. The 2009 champions could net €21.9m, just from prize money alone.

Radar

Signs of the times

Once Moscow residents were proud of all the billboard ads that plastered their city, proclaiming that they were major players in the consumer revolution. Now they are not so sure. In an effort to clean up the city’s ad glut, the city council issued a decree last July announcing deadlines when outdoor banners – in and around historical areas, buildings, cultural heritage sites and monuments – should be phased out. By 1 January around half of the 800 of them near the Kremlin had been dismantled. Other contracts will expire in 2010 and 2011.

However, the July law did not cover the gigantic banners that emblazon construction nets. By law, any construction or building undergoing repairs must encase its scaffolding with a net to collect falling debris. This can be extremely lucrative for building owners who sell ad space on them. Large-scale banner ads now cover 72% of the 102 nets draped over Moscow’s buildings under construction or repair, according to ad agency LBL Communication. LBL reckons ads have brought in around €5m over the course of the past 30 months for one building alone on the central street of Tverskaya-Yamskaya. Indeed, while 68 construction nets were covered in ads in July, the number grew to 73 in October, according to LBL – 56 of them located in the historical district.

IN POLITICS

Brigid Grauman snoops around Brussels’ corridors of power

Illustration Wilford Almoro/illustrationroom.com.au

Europe fights the credit crunch

During last autumn’s financial meltdown, no one knew what was going to happen next. Lehman Brothers in the US went bust, Belgium’s Fortis was in freefall, and the global chain reaction leading to recession had well and truly set in. The European Commission and its President Jose Manuel Barroso was harshly criticised for immobility, while in the meantime national governments were going off in all directions. It looked as though the Commission didn’t know what to do and that Barroso was afraid of opening his mouth. Since then, things have greatly improved. In late October, President Sarkozy of France and Britain’s Prime Minister Gordon Brown started to rally EU countries in a far more integrated way. The Commission’s idea for a €200 billion rescue package of concerted national measures became widely accepted, although the Germans are still reluctant and slow on the issue as they don’t think it is going to do much good. But the overall feeling is that the Europeans are starting to pull together at last, and that Sarkozy and Brown are the leaders who’ve done the most to stop the rot. Thanks to them, EU governments are no longer being tempted into beggar-my-neighbour tactics, even though they are still a long way from a determined Europe-wide approach. Of course, the worst is yet to come: nobody knows how deep or how long the recession is going to last, nor what stresses and strains it is going to put on the European economy and key industries.

Climate change will take its toll on world economy

3-13 February is Sustainable Energy Week, and Brussels is waiting to see whether the Obama administration is going to become its great ally in the efforts to save the planet. The new American President has picked for his government people with green credentials, such as Nobel Prizewinning physicist Steven Chu – signalling that the years of denial under the Bush administration are over. But the global deal for a successor to the Kyoto Protocol is meant to be agreed in Copenhagen next December and American realists are pointing out that their country won’t have much time to turn around the legislative super-tanker of environmental rules. The other big question mark is whether European and US industries will accept to pay the huge costs of meeting the new environmental targets. After the UK’s Stern Report warning of the long-term financial impact of climate change and global warming on the world economy, everyone agrees that the cost of emission-cutting measures now is peanuts compared to the cost of climate change once it sets in. Right now, though, the fact is that the big industries are on their knees.

The big EuroparlTV debate

For a long time, the European Parliament has been green with envy of Washington DC’s C-Span (Cable-Satellie) Public Affairs Network, the two not-for-profit television channels that air non-stop proceedings and debates “up on the hill”. After years of discussions about whether to choose German, English or French as its working language (in the end they chose all 23 official EU languages!), the European Parliament finally launched last September with great fanfare its answer to C-Span – EuroparlTV with a yearly running budget of €9 million. The idea is to bring Europe closer to its citizens by acting as a debate news channel. The only problems are that no one has heard of it, and that its few reports are less than riveting.

EU support for Sarkozy is divided

With the Czech Republic grinding the gears in the European Union’s driving seat, Brussels pundits are looking back with nostalgia at the six-month French Presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy, who is still basking in the afterglow of having restored a sense of leadership to the European Union. His quick-thinking shuttle diplomacy during the Georgia crisis defused an ugly situation, and he also reacted much faster to last autumn’s financial meltdown than the European Commission. He completed his Presidency with a 20-20-20 deal on combating climate change that is to slash greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by 2020, make 20% energy savings and raise renewable energy sources by up to 20 percent of energy use. Great stuff! On the other hand, Sarkozy’s Napoleonic style has created tensions within Europe – he didn’t bother to consult the other big countries and their heads of government before taking action.

Resentment is particularly strong in Germany.

Leave a Reply