InterContinental Hotels - A journey in Provence

Last night very "Selected" guests and businesspartners were invited to an exclusive stunning evening at the InterContinental Carlton in Cannes. It's wonderful when attention is given to details - just like we do at Select Travel! Pictures below say it all.








The party was in the amazing ballroom at the historical Carlton Hotel








Great food by great chefs









More delious creations








Jean-Louis Lautard exhibiting his bees that produce the best lavendel honey in the world!








Passionate chefs serving lovely specialities from Provence








Gillian Greenwood, Director of International Sales InterContinental Hotels based in London. I met Gillian already 20 years ago when she was a director in Hong Kong. She is a lovely person and a great fan of Select!









Leslie Cherfils, Director of Sales & Marketing and Trevor Owen, Vice President both from InterContinental Hotels








Nils Axing, Managing Director and Louise Engwall, Senior Sales Manager
from Grand Hotel Stockholm also an InterContinental family member

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Last day at the Luxury Trade Fair

Yesterday was the last day for important meetings in Luxurious Cannes! If you read the blog later today you will understand!


Anna Papakaliatis-Kadianakis the dynamic owner and CEO of the beautuful Elounda Gulf Villas & Suites. I have worked with Anna and her family for many many years and the hotel is one of our very best products on the Island of Crete.


Taufik Rachman, Director of Sales for the Alila Hotels in Asia. On the picture you can see the fantastic newly opened Hotel Soori in Bali. One among many hotels where Select Travel have an exclusive contract



Pureza Vaz Pinto, Director of Sales at
Choupana Hills Madeira, a wonderful and very special hotel for Select Travel

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Meetings in Cannes go on

Yesterday was an other day of very constructive and interesting meetings.
ILTM is a forum where I am not only searching for new products but deepering the relationship with our existing partners. It is so important for us to insure that our clients get the best benefits out of my contacts.





John Reed the Country Manger of Amankora in Bhutan. Amankora is one of my most unique experience in travel






Andrew Hughes, Director of Sales for our new product in Dubai; The Royal Amwaj & Spa. This is a stunning product you will learn more about in the new Select Collection published in March





Stephanie Greger, Director of Sales, a wonderful person representing the wonderful Costa Smeralda Hotels





Iro Orri, Naomi Graham and Maria Aslanidou for Grace Hotels in Santorini and Mykonos. Look at this new beautiful infinity pool behind the beautiful ladies





Vanessa Williams for Sandy Lane. It's the absolutely best hotel in Barbados but some of our clients say that it's the best hotel in the world!





Lucia Garau, Director of Sales & Marketing together with her assosiate from the most romantic hotel in Capri,
Caesar Augustus





Lunch date with Four Seasons
Jean-Pierre Soutric, Director of Sales and Maud Chuet, Sales Executive
This has been a long term fruitful relationship that seems to get stronger and stronger





Henri Poudensan, the Director of Marketing for Four Seasons in Lisbon
Henri is a very dynamic and wise person and gave me some good advise for our new project we will launch in March - I promise you will not miss it!





Helen Stirrup, Sales Manger for Four Seasons Langkawi, an other good friend and businesspartner that we love to work with!

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One & Only Event in Cannes

Very "Selected" partners were invited last night to the famous restaurant La Palme D'Or at the Hotel Martinez. The evening was hosted by our great partners One & Only. We have been working with this great hotels years and years back and the partnership just gets better and better








Paul Jones, President and Ceo








Tricia Warwick, Senior Vice President








Claudia Majunke Vice President Marketing One & Only, a long term friend and businesspartner








Maria Cristina Cesario, Director of Sales of the beautiful Island One & Only Reethi Rah in the Maldives and our Product & Marketing Director Fredrik Ottosson from Select Travel








Nice meeting great people! Keep in contact

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Partners in Travel

Yesterday was a busy day at the trade fair for luxury travel business (ILTM) here in Cannes. I've met many of my good old, friends and colleagues from the industry. Below I've posted pictures of some of my wonderful "partners in travel". One of the things that separetes Select from any other luxury travel agency, is that we have one of the longest track records and therefore most relationships with the best hotels and resorts in the world are built on personal contacts. No one can compete with that. It's all about relationships! And of course the great benefits that gives You, my valuable clients.


Mr Jacques Silvant, The General Manger of Royal Palm in Mauritius, not just a friend and great business partner but first of all a real gentleman. Please look for a cocktail invitation at Select in Mayfair in June where you will meet Jacques in person!




Hotel Trisara, Mr Anthony Lark, the most dynamic and wonderful General Manager of the Island of Phuket. A long term relationship that gives the Select Travel clients lovely personal added values!




Mr Roberto Viviani the Director of Wilderness, a very close friend and a great business partner. Wilderness has by far the best safari Lodges in Botswana and Namibia and owns the most beautiful exclusive island of the Seychelles called North Island which you can see in the picture


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ILTM

International Luxury Travel Market 2009
in Cannes 8-10 December

I arrived to Cannes Monday afternoon to participate at the last trade show of the year - but I would say one of the very best ones. It will be a busy week filled with appointments but You will hear more about this luxury business event.


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Dali Dali and Vezzoli

Yesterday I went to Moderna Museet (the Museum of Modern Art) in Stockholm to see the exhibition "Dali Dali featuring Vezzoli", together with my friend Sonja and her daughter.

Just like Dali as a person and artist was filled with surprises, the exhibition was also versatile and filled with surprises. At first glance I thought it was just a very classical exhibition with a large room filled with his famous thirties classical surrealistic paintings. Even if this was wonderful to see I was almost a bit disappointed, but then we saw this door that led to the next room and there were all of his more crazy art work, as well as Vezzolis work from this century. It was such a fun exhibition with Dali's famous female mouth formed as jewelry, there were video clips and installations and small sculptural art work. My god daughter who is five was totally immersed in this really funny video where Dali shows the effects of Alca Zeltzer by painting the effects on a model.

Vezzoli's art-works that play with media and the idolisation of today's famous people were also very very good.

Well worth a visit!

Independence Day

Today is the 92nd Finnish independence day. It's not at all celebrated like the American Independence day or for example the Norwegian National Day "Syttende Mai" which are both more festive in a party sort of way. No, the Finnish independence was followed after a bloody civil war that was a part of Finland's withdrawal from Russia after they've lost the first world war. That is why the Finnish Independance Day is a very formal and quiet affair. Respect is paid to the young countries war veterans that survived the wars against Soviet Union in the forties during World War II. Candles are lit in all windows and legend has that if two candles were lit in a window, it was a sign that Finnish Soldiers could seek refugee there.

I'm lightning two candles in my window tonight. You never know, maybe there are some soldiers out there who'd need shelter.

Romantic memories and good investments

To sit back and relax at home a Saturday night in rainy Stockholm is almost a bliss.

When the discussion of investments come up I try to convince and tell my friends; please invest in Travel! Travel is a long-term investment with high yield short-term dividends.

Travel memories are something that nobody can take away from you - tonight, for me, it's wonderful to think back and be filled with warm thoughts of Marrakesh!
















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A Club with Discretion

Where are we? The same question they ask at the very popular Swedish Friday night TV program called 'På Spåret'

I give you some hints;
A newly opened private club
Only selected and recommended members
Great location in Stockholm
Good food (lovely Pinot Noir) and great service
A dynamic Founder and a great host
Lovely atmosphere
Most important for me are the lovely friends you can see below





Mia Ljungberg Nevado, me and Lena Skogström Ericson...girl power with lots of laugh





Robert, the great Bar Manager made some very beautiful drinks called Strawberry Basil Smash





Ulrika Bergström, the passionate Light Designer





Anna-Johanna Bonnier a master of Interiors

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Tommy's Safari

I'm trying to give You my valued customers an insight into how much we do at Select in order to secure the very, very best of the best. As I've said before, and will repeat often, we cannot recommend something with all of our hearts if we haven't seen it ourselves. Therefore I 've talked to my colleagues and they will help me to share some of the wonderful experiences they've had while traveling and scouting new and better locations for You.

Here you can read Tommy Ebbeståhls own words about a safari he's just been on

"Back home after my first but definitely not my last safari. 6 nights in Kenya combining north and south Kenya, a combination that I am recommending to everyone. My absolute favorites are Elsas Kopje (named after the lion Elsa in the movie "Born Free") up in the north and Cottars Camp (a celebrity favorite) in the south. Two very different camps but both completely amazing.

The pictures are from Elsas Kopje, with the fantastic view during sunrise from your private viewpoint where you easily could see giraffe and elephants every morning, and also from the beautiful 1920 style décor of Cottars Camp. Cottars offers a real genuine safari experience, everything from being picked up from the airstrip in their original 1922 Rolls Royce, sitting outside of your private tent, gazing over the savanna and sipping dry sherry or buying a real massai-spear, directly from the massai warrior that has been guarding your tent the same night.

Then, to finish it of I have to add a picture of the beautiful water, just made for diving and snorkeling outside of Zanzibar, a perfect end to a fantastic trip."


You can call any of our offices and they will help you to get answers from Tommy to any questions You'd have on this exciting safari trip. We have some other safari-locations as well, so please feel free to ask anything, we'll usually have a person who've been om location and can give you all the insight to make your trip personalised and perfect from the very booking moment all the way till you are back home.

Here are some of Tommys pictures, also that is him in the picture enjoying the view at Elsas Kopje









PS. You do know that when an elephant has the trunk up, it means luck!

Meeting with Oslo

I'm dealing with 5 countries and today it was time for Norway. Our dynamic Country Manager Dag Age Carlsen was visiting us and we had a very good working day.

In Norway we have a great team; Astrid, Ada, Therese, Erland and Dag Åge, all very professional with great knowledge.






Dag Age and me in Monaco in September





The newly renovated Oslo office on Majorstuvejen is a lovely living-room

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Antiques are back!

Late blog due to a great busy Monday! Our offices have been very busy lately which is a good sign that business seems to be back to normal!

Antiques are also back! Four new art and antique fairs are expected in London next year. Good reason to ask our professional sales people for good offers to travel to the great capital.









Our beautiful office on 62 South Audley Street in Mayfair ( good shopping, great bars and dining in the area)








Please visit us; Enjoy the exotic Scandinavian design, have a capuccino and meet our lovely and very professional people, Collette, George and Saif

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