Hospitality Action Week is really gaining momentum now … Charlotte, Fiona, Lara and Lauren are working behind the scenes on the Action Hero campaign and there have been interesting developments with Marco Pierre White’s signed pair of pants… We are planning some big things with his underwear 
3663 has also committed to raising £50,000 for the project. Then there is the Great British Menu dinner with Jason Atherton which the team managed to get featured on the Toptable.com weekly newsletter that is circulated to more than 500,000 consumers – not bad for a week’s work.
Today’s press (Times, Daily Mail) claims that drinking half a glass of wine a day can extend your life by five years, telling pregnant women not to drink is apparently sexist and this Saturday sees the start a whole celebratory week of Scotland’s favourite tipple.
Roll on the bank holiday weekend….(where we’ll of course be following responsible drinking practices ….)
This celebrity chef will do what ever he can to support a great cause. Check out the pants he designed to support Hospitality Action Hero Week, May 18th – 14th.
A huge thank you to Marco Pierre White for flashing his pants in public to support Hospitality Action. He decorated a rather attractive pair of white y-fronts to raise the profile of Hospitality Action’s Hero Week – 18-24 May – a fundraising week to raise much needed money for our industry colleagues falling on hard times. Go to pic of the week to see Marco’s pants for yourself and we hope it inspires you to don your own ‘external underwear’ and help HA too. Watch this space to see what the William Murray team has up its sleeves (or down its pants)!
Out and about in Italy for a press trip this week (oh the glamorous life of food & drink PR) I was really impressed by the sense of hospitality that was present everywhere in the country – from the moment we stepped off the plane to the airport staff at Marco Polo on our return trip. It seems that this is a country that really does understand the true meaning of the word ‘hospitality,’ both at work and play. During meetings we were plied with endless pastries, teas and coffees and at the restaurant we visited one evening basket after basket of fresh bread would appear with never a word needing to be said. All was accompanied by genuine smiles and wonderful manners which totally overcame any language problems that our lack of Italian might have caused – definitely a case of food crossing all language barriers! Working within the world of food and drink it was a real privilege to visit a country where people are so generous with their food and so eager for you to really enjoy it – a fabulous advert for hospitality across Europe.
Holly Nuttall
All is not quiet in the world of food and drink PR. Over the rising and falling click of the keyboards has come a shriek of delight. Something good is happening but we can’t say what it is yet. Check back on Friday morning to hear the news.
At William Murray we like to do our bit for the environment…after all it would be slightly hypocritical if we didn’t practice what we preach to our clients! Responsible Business Practice (RBP) or CSR as it is most widely known is essential to any business and can start with little changes which have a powerful effect, such as turning off all monitors at the end of the day (yes, even though they can take ages to restart!) At William Murray, the whole team has contributed to our RBP initiative, which makes everyone feel involved, and means all the more suggestions!
Things that we are currently doing to improve the environment include:
• Recycling 60% of our waste
• Recycling IT and peripherals
• Using telephone conferencing to cut down on travel and using the train rather than cars where possible
• Switching off lights as we leave the office at the end of the day
Our efforts were recently recognised by ‘Paper Round’, the office recycling company, who awarded us an ‘Award for Office Recycling’ certificate. The certificate was in recognition of our 2008 recycling results, which revealed that we recycled 2,587kg of paper, 20kg of glass and 20kg of cans and plastic bottles – pretty impressive for an office of twelve!
With recent news that hotel insolvencies have soared to 200% in the first quarter of the year according to Caterersearch, the announcement of Whitbread’s Premier Inn all-out attack on more expensive rivals signals an aggressive price war ahead for the budget end of the hotel trade.
Interestingly an article on the same page of The Times announces a revamp of the former Metropole Hotel near Trafalgar Square – off the back of a £135m loan - and plans to turn it into one of London’s most luxurious places to stay. The redevelopment will create a £270 million hotel with 300 rooms, including multi-level penthouse suites with terraces overlooking the Thames.
It’s not always about price, so while Premier Inn is advertising the £30 to £40 a night difference against what they describe as ‘overpriced and under-delivering three and four star operators’ there will still be customers who want quality and value for money at the top end of the market.
If it’s utility lodging the customer wants – a bed for the night – then Premier Inn does the job, but it’s good to know that even in these tough times there is still a market for luxury accommodation. One can’t help wondering though with this new hotel so close to Whitehall whether the proposed ministerial overnight allowance will have to be increased dramatically to cover the cost of a room at this palatial venue.
Well the recession doesn’t seem to be holding back Jamie Oliver, with news of his second Italian restaurant opening in London tourist haven, Covent Garden. The first is due to open in Canary Wharf this August – let’s hope the bankers still have some money left to keep it going.
And we hear that Ray Lorimer, executive chef and culinary controller at Unilever Foodsolutions, has recently earned himself a First Class Honours degree in International Culinary Arts from Thames Valley University – well done Ray!
And congratulations to The Maze’s Jason Atherton who ran his first Flora London Marathon in four hours and 53 minutes on Sunday.
Fatty food nightmare – Daily Express, pg 15
Shocking figures revealed today that Britain’s love of fatty foods means the average 40-year-old woman has a “saturated-fat-age” of a 66-year-old!! This reiterates Flora’s new campaign ‘The Big Fat Truth’, which is being launched to raise awareness of the health risks associated with saturated fats.
