Fly on Corporate Wall

The prime minister of Bahrain, His Royal Highness Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa, has just set a new record at Bangkok’s Mandarin Oriental Hotel, his favourite “home away from home”: 51 visits and 779 nights since his first stay in 1996.
The Oriental notices this sort of thing. At the end of his 24-night stay, guest-relations director Mayuree Laolugsanalerd gave the prime minister a miniature teak replica of the hotel’s shuttle boat, a sleek craft of which he’s quite fond.
Khalifa keeps asking if he can take the actual boat home with him, so the hotel gave its model guest a model memento. But that’s just to hold him over – the Oriental is actually having a full-scale, useable teak copy made for him. It will be flown to Bahrain when it’s ready.
It pays to be a regular customer!

Serene Surang
Surang Prempree, former managing director of BBTV, which runs Channel 7, caused a bit of a stir this week when she announced that the Miss Thailand Universe pageant, whose licence she owns, will this year be seen on Channel 5 instead, and renamed Miss Universe Thailand.
Vowing to keep the pageant broadcast lively because she has “earned the trust of the Miss Universe organiser”, Surang seemed almost reborn at age 70. She’s more laid back than she used to be, no longer fretting about ratings. She credits the change to giving more time to socialising rather than work.
Reporters tried to guess what she’d tackle next. Producing soap operas? Nope, Surang said. “Why should I go back to the past?” Politics? “Absolutely not!”
How about venturing into satellite TV? Well, she said, the field is still evolving, so she’ll wait and see. “At my age it would be too difficult to embark on a new business. But I might produce a film. Why not – I love watching films, especially the ones that earn Bt100 million!”
What about the rumour that rival Channel 3 wants her as an adviser? “I haven’t agreed to advise anyone, but giving personal advice is another thing,” she said.
And on it went, providing ample proof that Surang is more relaxed than she’s been in a long time. She has done plenty of press conferences, but she has never answered this many questions before.

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