Ground Floor: After three weeks of criss-crossing the southern hemisphere it was nice to touch down at Dublin airport again, though the arrivals hall was a sad reminder that our creaky infrastructure is miles behind the demands we place upon it and that various "improvements" are cosmetic rather than actually helpful. (I have become something of an airport connoisseur lately and Dublin doesn't rate too high on the radar. But it's still better than Terminal One at Heathrow!)
I wondered, as I travelled, whether the local business stories on the other side of the globe would be radically different from the European/US ones I'm more used to reading. Intrinsically, they weren't.
There were the usual will-they won't-they takeover and privatisation stories, the features on national business heroes, the corruption stories, the local scandals, the winners and losers - it's all pretty much the same wherever you go. Everyone is aware that there has been a shift of power towards China and everyone is wondering how best to exploit that region's phenomenal growth while protecting their own industries.
On a more micro level, the property market dominated every single country I visited, whether in relation to domestic markets or to speculative purchases overseas. The most intriguing is Dubai, a city that has seen phenomenal growth over the past 10 years and where 50-storey tower blocks appear almost overnight. I was particularly interested to see Dubai at first hand since even casual acquaintances these days seem to be fully au fait with property in the area and talk about growth and profitability potential levels to make your eyes water.
The city is actually a big construction site. Most of the property is being built along the seafront (not surprisingly), which means that the entire coast road is reminiscent of the M1 port tunnel works. The traffic in the city is a complete nightmare - think M50 toll bridge! And you have to drive everywhere because Dubai is a city for cars, not pedestrians.
The brochures show pictures of gleaming tower blocks in green gardens, but the reality at the moment is that they are surrounded by cranes and a hell of a lot of dust.
There's a big marketing push on Dubai, but anyone buying there needs to have a long-term investment strategy in place - unlike, for example, Spain or Portugal you won't be letting for periods of time while you're not there yourself. Floor 50 of a tower block, even a gleaming glass structure overlooking the sea, is really not what most people want for a summer break!
Through Australia and New Zealand my mind was concentrated more on hotel accommodation than on residential property (although in both countries there were property hotspots too) because I was spending each night in a different place. The whole living-out-of-your-suitcase lark gets a bit wearing after a while and even the tongue-in-cheek touch of the Intercontinental hotel group in putting a yellow plastic duck in the bath raises nothing more than a wry smile after the second night.
What would have been more useful would have been reasonably priced broadband access in the hotel rooms. I know that hoteliers have to make a living too, but the divergence of pricing in providing broadband to guests is extraordinary. (It's the same story in Ireland and the UK.)
It seems like the hotel chains have decided that if you're a travelling business person who has the temerity to want to access e-mail in your room you should pay through the nose for the privilege. Most insist that you buy by the hour, which means that although you might only want to check e-mails and send a file that takes 10 minutes, you still have to pay for 60.
In one hotel, the cost to connect to broadband in the room was 30 Australian dollars (€18) for the day. However, the hotel itself was beside a Wi-Fi hotspot, which meant that I was actually able to buy 24 non-consecutive hours for half that price by signing on with the WiFi provider instead. When I stayed at a "non-business" hotel, broadband access in the room was free. Which, as far as I'm concerned, goes to show that hotels make the assumption that a business account won't care about the extra charges being racked up. Vote with your feet! Check out the hotel's broadband policy and save your company a fortune.
Save too by using Skype to call home. I spent approximately €15 on Skype Out calls back to Ireland during three weeks of my tour. I spent more than twice that in just one day in roaming mobile charges when someone called me! OK, so you have to be organised, but those savings can surely do wonders for the share price of even the wealthiest of companies.
And speaking of share prices, I checked up on my old favourite Marks & Spencer because I was surprised to see that, after all of the cutbacks of the past years, they had a big store in one of Singapore's malls. Given that so much of Singapore shopping is taken up with designer outlets, Marks & Spencer provides a lower-cost option. The group has now reclaimed its position as Britain's biggest clothes retailer and the share price is around 556p, which is a triumph for Stuart Rose.
I like the fact that someone who started out in the firm but left because of frustration with its policies has come back and steered it back to profitability. It shows a strong brand can recover with good management. And it was only when I was unpacking my case for the final time that I realised that I had contributed to that profitability myself. The three skirts I'd taken away with me had been bought in the past year from Marks & Spencer - what a turnaround!
