President's Column

Taking a grilling - travel style!

Anyone who's been to a major travel conference will know it rockets past in a blur of business sessions, glimpses of familiar - sometimes downright famous - faces, great craic and the occasional sore head (from the business sessions, of course!). Last week's Advantage Conference was no exception, and a couple of presentations stood out as superb examples of why these gatherings are so important to our business lives. Baroness Susan Greenfield CBE, a world expert in neuroscience, was fascinating on the subject of technology and how it affects our brains; David Rowan, Editor of WIRED UK tackled 'innovation' brilliantly, and for me the star of the stage was Advantage colleague Tony Mann, who told the story of how he came through an incredibly troubled time for his travel business, got 'his Mojo back' and turned the corner to success.

To round it all off, I took a thorough grilling from the famous (infamous?) broadcaster Jeremy Paxman. Having given the Advantage audience a razor-sharp overview of the UK political scene and its characters during the recent General Election, Paxo 'warmed down' by skewering yours truly with 'questions from our live audience', and I can tell you - it's only when you get fixed by that trademark glare that you realise how scary he can be, even when there's a distinct twinkle... click to read on!

SPAA Diary 2015