Untold - some of hospitality's incredible tales from around the globe.

Lynn grew up with travel in the blood – hailing from a services family, Lynn left the home counties as a young girl and spent much of her childhood and teenage years in Cyprus and grew up with a strong desire to see the World. 

Lynn spent time in the Middle East before realizing a goal and joining British Airways – a role which saw her maximize her travel concessions. Remarkably a chance meeting with a Hotel General Manager in Rio Di Janeiro led to a Hong Kong job interview – a shrewd observation from the interviewing GM put Lynn on the path to a PR career second to none. 

Lynn talks about her times and memories from pivotal roles at Hong Kong hotel institutions, The Peninsula and The Regent.

Lynn's meeting and partnering with Oxford Scholar and fellow PR professional, Paul Hicks was a masterstroke. Grebstad Hicks kicked off with a conference to announce Disney Hong Kong and saw many decades of sustained growth and client account wins all over the globe. 

Having left Hong Kong, Lynn is now based in beautiful Koh Samui – she continues to be a force for good and is relentlessly positive – her time currently firmly focused on the Island of Koh Samui and helping Villa and Tourism businesses on Post-Covid strategies. 

Today’s Untold talks with Nick Ray about Cambodia and a potted history of modern day tourism in this beautiful Country in South East Asia that has been faced with many political challenges and turbulent past in our lifetimes.

Nick talks about how first became aware of Cambodia via Blue Peter and following several visits post University made Cambodia a home. Having met his wife Kulikar Sotho who had started a successful and growing tourism business with her mother, that business was Hanuman Tours. 

With journalist credentials, aptitude and considerable writing talent Nick managed to secure the first Lonely Planet Cambodia guide and has gone on to write over 50 travel book assignments.

Hanuman Tours has grown dramatically over the years and has in place a formidable network of tour operator partners around the globe ensuring that thousands of travelers every year have the best possible experience of their visit to the Kingdom of Wonder! 

Nick and Kulikar have also grown a significant film business which from a small scouting trip for a crew of 5 has grown to include Hollywood blockbusters documentaries, adverts, BBC, Discovery and National Geographic assignments. Hanuman Films also produced ‘The Last Reel’ which was Directed by Kulikar and produced by Nick and collected significant plaudits and awards on the festival circuit. 

For this episode of Untold I am delighted to welcome back Mr Mike Scully. Mike kindly was the first guest in the inaugural episode talking about the history of Barasti bar. The response was tremendous. At the peak, the podcast was being listened to by over 250 people around a day and showing the true global nature of the travel industry had been downloaded in over 103 Cities in the first 3 days and 1,000 downloads in the first week.

Post recording Mike and I heard from contacts and people we had not heard from in years and additionally I received scores of emails and questions for Mike that we did not cover in the first episode. This hour answers all these questions and more. During editing I have listened to this episode 4 times and each time have learned additional facts, theories or analogies that I missed initially – the biggest compliment I can play Mike is that I can seldom remember learning as many practical hospitality lessons in a short space of time – from Tiger Woods influence on golf course design, introducing molecular gastronomy to Dubai, the steps he would take to escape brand constraints to optimize a hotel opening in 2020. Enjoy – Beyond Barasti with Mike Scully

Over 55 mins Nigel chronicles his career at the forefront of luxury travel and tourism. 

Starting off as an advertising sales manager with the Far Eastern Review, Nigel set off to Hong Kong in his mid-20s, covering the full Asia region with advertisers from many industries and key Asian Cities. Quite early on Nigel discovered his element, which was a love from travel and hospitality. Following a brief return to Blighty, Nigel joined Institutional Investor and very quickly became universally known for his role in heading up the Industry Gold Standard, Institutional Investor top 100 list. 

Nigel launched in earnest Worlds Best Hotels in 2001 utilizing the II survey and additionally went into pubishing with The Chic Collection starting with Mexico Chic managed to grow to as large as 30 different books. For the past number of years Nigel has moved to France and has launched Bolder Travel complete with a very successful blog with interviews with some of travel and hospitality’s bold and interesting leaders around the world.

Matthew Upchurch talks about Virtuoso Travel Week in Las Vegas, International expansion to 55 Countries and growing, partnering with Sir Richard Branson to sell places on Virgin Galactic via the Preferred Space Accreditation Program and concludes with his thoughts for what 2021 may bring as well as introducing a new term - 'Revenge Travel'.

In this edition we talk to Matthew Upchurch, the inspirational CEO of luxury Travel Network, Virtuoso. Matthew sits on many Industry and Customer Advisory Boards and is in the Travel and Cruise Hall of Fames. Matthew talks about the early years of Upchurch Travel, Allied and Percival and ultimately the launch of Virtuoso. Matthew covers some key milestones, strategic decisions and a little luck that allowed Virtuoso to grow exponentially in the face of challenges including: the removal of airline commissions, global events such as 9/11 and the advent of the Internet and introduction of online power houses: Expedia and Travelocity. Enjoy the first part of this fascinating travel success story !

Over 45 mins Mike tells the story of Dubai’s legendary Barasti Bar. 

Mike covers the early days from Barasti’s formation as the clubhouse for Power Boat racing in the late 90s– its considerable growth and some of the important external drivers behind it including the South African Channel M-Net, the impact of tourism post 9/11 which saw Le Meridien and Barasti look local and firmly position itself as the place to be in the Arabian Gulf every Friday which eventually became everyday. 

Mike also talks about how he managed to drive revenues when running at full capacity and how Barasti managed to break through the million dirhams per night ceiling which becoming known as ‘The World’s busiest Beach bar’. 

Sep 2020