a day at the fair

03/16/11 09:55

No matter how many years I go, I always find something interesting at Cruise Shipping Miami.

The trade show seemed smaller than usual. "It gets smaller every year," someone told me. "This used to be the only one. Now other countries have them."

But it was not without its surprises. The Finnish Father Christmas was a no-show this year, but four Danish boys in redcoats played fife and drums and, over in Iceland, a young woman sang ancient folk songs a cappella. (A business student, she also gives "singing tours" of her hometown, she told me later, which end with a performance in the town church.)

Liudovika Pakalkaite offered me chocolate-covered Lithuanian cookies baked in the shape of mushrooms. I declined, but took her business card, which featured a picture of a beautiful wood carving at a place called Witches' Hill (near the port of Klaipeda).

May Britt Hansen's Norwegian business card carried a picture of her paddling a kayak. (Not exactly cruise shipping, but definitely nautical.)

At the Flanders booth I was assured that Belgium would survive. "It's the politicians and the media - the people get along fine." Then I was handed a gorgeous postcard of an old Art Nouveau poster for the Red Star Line ("Antwerpen-New York").

A young woman in a green and red hanbok (a dental student at Nova Southeastern) greeted visitors to the Korea booth, while next door the Japan booth sat empty, with a sign explaining that representatives were staying home to help with the recovery from the earthquake.

At lunch I sat next to the president of a Turkish tourism company in Istanbul, and told him of my delightful stay many years ago at the Buyuk Londra (just up the street from the more celebrated, and expensive, Pera Palas).

The large Italy and France pavilions were moved this year to the technical section. Stopping by Sicily, I mentioned that I had been in Palermo in August researching a story on the anti-Mafia organization Addiopizzo. "We belong to it," the young woman told me.

Not far away, a young Korean designer explained the pictures being projected onto a screen. They were of a futuristic cruise ship her firm had designed, and it included a vertical farm on the top deck and a five-story aquarium into which swimmers - though only those in wet suits, I think - would be propelled from the swimming pool. You heard it here first.

I usually don't spend much time in the press room, but even there I heard something interesting as Stuart Newman - the doyen of Florida PR people - told of getting his start by writing up reports of his high school football practices for the Fort Lauderdale News. Ever the professional, he then handed me a press release about one of his clients.

Quite possibly the loneliest person in the hall was the representative from Libya Safari Tourism Services. So of course I stopped to chat with him. He told me that, at a recent travel show in Germany, his booth had been mobbed by newspaper, TV and radio reporters.

I ended the day, as I always do, at the Holland pavilion. For the second year in a row, the wonderful band 4Tuoze Matroze had not been invited ("too expensive" I had been told last year) and in their place was a cheap sound system. But a charming young Irish woman handed me a chicken satay in peanut sauce, introduced me to her husband, and said that if I'm ever traveling in the west of Ireland I'm welcome to stay at their house. You can't ask for more than that from a trade show.

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