More big-name speakers join Summit lineup

Gavin Lipsith

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Interest is growing fast in the 2005 Global Travel Retail Summit organised by DFNI extra publisher Raven Fox, which takes place on February 3-4 in London

The event takes place alongside the ever-popular Raven Fox Charity Ball and the first-ever Global Travel Retail Awards.

Entitled "The $50bn Travel-Retail Business ? impossible dream or future reality?", this high-profile event will attract over 200 of the travel-retail world's key decision-makers, and will provide a forum for radical new thinking and ideas that will shape the industry into the future.

To date, speakers from the world's leading retailers already include Dufry CEO Julían Diáz, Dubai Duty Free managing director Colm McLoughlin, Alpha Airports Group CEO Kevin Abbott and Aldeasa international business director Julio López.

Airports Council International, the voice of the airports industry worldwide, will support the event. Director-general Robert Aaronsen will speak at the event about the role of commercial activities in the airports of the future, and about the challenges the airports' industry will face in future.

US department store Macy's will also take part. Director of Visitor Services Rosemary Nightingale will deliver insights into the downtown store approach to the travelling consumer, and how Macy's sees the business evolving in the future.

The Summit forms part of a three-in-one event, including the Raven Fox Ball and the inaugural Global Travel Retail Awards, to be held on the evening of February 3.

The Raven Fox Ball will benefit those affected by the September siege at the school in Beslan, southern Russia, in which hundreds of people - many of them children - were killed. Already the first companies, including World Duty Free and Elizabeth Arden, have booked their tables. The awards will be held at a special ceremony during the ball.

*In other events news, Moodie International and Tax Free World Association last week announced they would jointly organise the second Trinity Forum, to be held in London on March 21-22 2005.