DATELINE MONDAY 9TH JANUARY 2017

Happy New Year, Happy Monday Morning.

The end of year holidays are over and a new Monday morning of a new working year has begun, I hope you had a good end of December and beginning of January, I certainly did.

2017 sees us celebrating our 20th year representing world class DMCs, I believe our 20 years’ of representing outstanding “A” list DMCs is definitely a landmark in business and for sure is worth shouting about.

Were you at work last week? I don’t think many people were at work however we at MM and Company were in the office, there was enough to keep us busy. It’s always slow at the beginning of January but we have got events or site inspections to Berlin, Japan, Cancun, South Africa and Russia, not bad for the first two weeks of the year.

DMC News* MM and Company News * Destination News*

Our world class DMCs are putting together lots of information that we know will be interesting to you and your clients, more on that next week.

Mauritius

As it’s getting really cold in London and I need some Indian ocean type sunshine, I’m popping over to Mauritius to see Karl, Davina, Anusha and the team at Connections DMC. I will just be there for three nights, I’m looking forward to some heat and sunshine. Two weeks after that I will be up to my knees in the deep fresh snow. Mauritius, the third week of January, Iceland the first week of February.

Iceland Ylfa, Linda, Perla and the team at Nordic Visitor Iceland heard that I was going to Mauritius for some sunshine and decided that I should come to Iceland for a totally different but equally amazing experience. So the first week of February I will be up to my knees in snow checking out what the beautiful city of Reykjavik has to offer you, our conference and incentive clients and friends.

Japan

James Kent and the team at The J Team, have told us of their national holiday today, so Japan is closed, they will all be back tomorrow. Today is Coming of Age Day, twenty-year-olds all over Japan will dress up, party and accept the responsibilities of adult citizens This holiday is held every year on the second Monday of January, the holiday recognizes a citizen's — you guessed it — coming of age. When a person turns 20, they're legally considered an adult. They can vote, drink and smoke. Everyone who turned 20 in the past year celebrates on Coming of Age Day, which is referred to in Japanese as Seijin no Hi. Monday is designated as a public holiday. The Coming of Age Day tradition may reach as far back as the 700s, though its more modern interpretation began in the 1600s. Boys would participate in genpuku and girls would join in mogi ceremonies where they would dress in adult robes and cut their hair. The holiday took on a different tone after World War II, when the city of Warabi, near Tokyo, hosted a youth festival to cheer people up. The concept caught on and became official in 1948.

Leyla and Hannah’s twitter and witter bit of the Monday morning e mail

The girls are back at school, Leyla enjoyed her winter break from school, it was spent almost exclusively in bed or in front of the television if not the TV then some other screen. There was a great discussion going o

n in the house, talk about opposites attract. Ayse was banging on about Leyla doing nothing all day but watching television or sleeping, she needs to go out, do something, meet friends, see things. I took the opinion that she is fourteen, it’s her holiday and she’s doing what she wants to do, OMG who was right, I doubt we will ever know.

I did take both girls to Winter Wonderland Fun Fair and Christmas Market in Hyde Park, Hannah loves the mad rides, Leyla will only do the very tame ones. So it was Hannah and I that were launched at 30 or 40 miles an hour round roller-coaster, spinning rides and gyrating rides. They only thing they all had in common was which ride would eventually make you throw up, fortunately none of them did and we went on quite a few. Leyla reluctantly joined us on one ride vowing she would never go on one again.

That’s it you are now fully up to date I hope you have a terrific full five days at work this week.