NEWH - April 2004 - (Page 67)

from across the pond… thelma & louise meet las vegas by: Bonni Boniface and Carolyn Lawson-Dick, Decorex I traveled to HD Expo in Las Vegas with Decorex colleague and fellow NEWH member, Caroline Lawson-Dick, to arrive the day before the show and attend the NEWH Board Meeting. The whole experience, lasting a total of five days, can only be described as surreal but highly enjoyable. Before we ever got there, we’d entered the make-believe of LALA Land by flying into LA (direct flights to Vegas are as hens’ teeth) and hiring a car to drive to The Strip. The Thelma & Louise of hospitality exhibitions set off with directions, maps and bottles of water, only to be thwarted before we even got out of LA – the published directions were wrong. Or Thelma couldn’t make head or tail of them, whichever! Does anyone have any idea where Highway 30 leaves Los Angeles? Anyway, we reached the Sands Expo Center about half an hour late for the afternoon session, only to find that the morning meeting had run over and we were way a head of our intended schedule. Picture the scene in a subterranean fluorescent room – forty power-dressed, coiffed, manicured women and five men (we’ll come back to them later), picking at delicious-looking salads and disgustinglooking pink cake, animated discussion raging about everything from education to publicity to conferences to galas (gay-las, as they pronounce it). It was fascinating stuff (but we passed on the pink cake). The business of the afternoon got under way with an inspirational pep-talk from Michelle Finn, NEWH Ambassador at Large and Group Director of VNU Expos, who mount HD Expo. Her subject was business success, using the very successful HD Expo as a model, with great emphasis on aspects such as self-confidence, persistence, good customer and employee relations. By the time she’d finished, we felt we could go out and conquer the world. We then split into three small groups for brain-storming session on various aspects of NEWH’s fund-raising work. We decided that we should join the group discussing events, but first we needed a little sustenance. By the time we’d found a sandwich, we’d lost the group. We eventually found them round a table in the Cactus Star Bar in the casino, knee-deep in margueritas – hey, our kinda group! Many fund-raising ideas were thrown out, and with true American enthusiasm, most were picked up by willing volunteers. NEWH in the USA admits men (remember those five men...?. I was interested and a bit dismayed to note how highly visible they were within a room where they made up only a very small percentage of the assembled company. If there was a voice to be heard, a group leader to be appointed, an outside consultant to be hired, it was a man, it seemed to me. Despite not being a militant feminist, I wonder how this happens and I do question whether, as women, we are still too eager to defer to the male, even in our own organization. I think I’m glad NEWH UK is women-only, although the men, themselves, were charming and talented. On leaving the very enjoyable and instructive NEWH meeting, Thelma and I took yet another wrong turn and ended up at the top of an escalator in a Venetian piazza, complete with gondolas and a canal and I was amazed to notice it was already dusk – that’s jet-lag for you. Or is it? No, it’s Las Vegas. We were in a giant ROOM, the darkening sky with fluffy clouds was a ceiling and it’s dusk there 24 hours a day, 365 days a year – very disturbing when your body’s telling you it’s 5 a.m. HD Expo itself was a delightful surprise to us, as exhibition organizer. Having put on several shows in the USA, we are used to a ‘pile it high, sell it cheap’ level of display over there. HD Expo was much more like Decorex, with exhibitors producing very attractive stands, showing their products off to great advantage, and the quality of the products on show was very high, too. We couldn’t recommend it more highly, if you’re doing work in the USA and need to source suppliers. Visit HD Expo and you get the added bonus of the Venetian piazza, the Treasure Island pirate ship, the erupting volcano at the Mirage and the dancing fountains at the Bellagio – not to be missed. As Thelma and I headed into the west at the end of an exhausting but extremely worthwhile few days, we had to admit, our initial cynicism at the concept of LaLa Land had been replaced with a big dose of good ol’ American enthusiasm – we’ll be back! Reprinted from the first UK newsletter, 2004 67

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of NEWH - April 2004

NEWH - April 2004
President’s Letter
Calendar of Events
Contents
From the Editor
Hospitality News
In Memory - Thomas R. Durkan, Sr.
Top Hotel Developers - John Q. Hammons
On the Road Again
HD Expo at a Glance
Surviving HD
Did You Know
Exclusive Lifestyle by Design
If It Were Easy
The Best of Time
Talk About Fast Track
What to Expect From the Vacation Ownership Industry
A Look Back in History
The New Direction for Timeshares in Europe
Confronting the Disabilities Myth
Furnishing Today’s Timeshare
Art - The Final Piece of the Puzzle
Showcase Projects
Design Education Today
Designer Profile: Esther Dunbar-Cullum
Oh Canada, Oh Canada
Top Awards
From Across the Pond
Spotlight On...
Tips on Specs
Window Treatments 101
Hot New Products
We Want Your Projects
Bios

NEWH - April 2004