Posts by Raymond Girard

Sparksheet, Spafax’s award-winning media and marketing magazine, has launched a special micro-magazine for the 2011 APEX Expo. Sparksheet@APEX will tell the story of this year’s Airline Passenger Experience trade show through exclusive multiplatform content before, during and after the event.

“Our goal is to explore the connections between the inflight entertainment and communications world, and the content, media and marketing universe,” says Dan Levy, Editor of Sparksheet. “We believe it’s important for IFEC professionals to be aware of broader trends in media, like the shift to digital, so they can understand and anticipate how they affect their own businesses.”

Sparksheet@APEX is filled with in-depth interviews with the airlines, content distributors, hardware manufacturers and independent experts who make the industry fly. The site also features classic Sparksheet stories updated and reframed for the APEX audience on everything from inflight magazine publishing and airport marketing, to emerging markets and branded entertainment.

The Sparksheet team will be at the Washington State Convention Center throughout the show, conducting video interviews, blogging and live-tweeting the event.

“With the sheer quantity of players at APEX we feel this is the perfect venue to hone our craft and collect some truly unique stories,” says Raymond Girard, Publisher of Sparksheet and President of Spafax Interactive.

Visit Sparksheet@APEX at apex.sparksheet.com and on Twitter @Sparksheet_APEX. For more information, or to set up an interview during the show, contact Dan Levy at events@sparksheet.com.

We’ve recently established an office in Frankfurt to service our Lufthansa Group business (in partnership with Spafax London and Spafax Orange County) and we’re now fully staffed… For now!

So a warm welcome to:
(Left)   Alex Mirsch, Programme Manager
(Middle) Ivona Galesic, Programme Administrator
(Right)  Helmut Lauerbach, Senior Director

They’re based at the offices of Spafax sister company Wunderman at Kleyerstrasse 19, 60326 Frankfurt, Germany.

Welcome!

August 29, 2011, Montreal – From Vancouver and New York to London and Udaipur, Canadian architects and interior designers are creating hotels that boost our international reputation – and make our stays more enjoyable. To celebrate the success of our homegrown talent, enRoute assembled a panel of experts – Spanish designer Patricia Urquiola, Belgian architect Jean-Michel Gathy and Canadian architects Todd Saunders and Jean Pelland – to choose the winners in each of our 10 competition categories. You’ll never feel homesick again.

And the winners are…

Best Overall Interior Design

The Waikiki Edition, Honolulu

Glenn Pushelberg and George Yabu; Yabu Pushelberg

Best Overall Architecture

The Keefer, Vancouver

Gair Williamson and Chris Woodford; Gair Williamson Architects

Best Lobby, <150 Rooms

The Smyth Tribeca, New York

Glenn Pushelberg and George Yabu; Yabu Pushelberg

Best Lobby, 150+ Rooms

The Waikiki Edition, Honolulu

Glenn Pushelberg and George Yabu; Yabu Pushelberg

Best Standard Room, <150 Rooms

Hôtel le Germain Calgary, Calgary

Viateur Michaud, Pierre Mierski and Lucie Vaillancourt; LemayMichaud Architecture Design

Best Standard Room, 150+ Rooms

W Minneapolis – The Foshay, Minneapolis

Sai Leung, Alessandro Munge and Sayed Shakour; Munge Leung

Best Suite, <150 Rooms

The Royal Suite, the Leela Palace Kempinski Udaipur, India

Jeffrey A. Wilkes; DesignWilkes Sdn Bhd

Best Suite, 150+ Rooms

Fairmont Pacific Rim, Vancouver

James Cheng (James K.M. Cheng Architects Inc.)

Best Spa or Pool, <150 Rooms

Shangri-La Hotel, Vancouver

N.Y. Chu; B+H Chil Design

Best Spa or Pool, 150+ Rooms

Sparkling Hill Resort, Vernon, B.C.

Jennifer Kurtz, Shauna Root, Gerry Shinkewski and Susan Steeves; SSDG Interiors Inc.

Air Canada’s enRoute, together with the Interior Designers of Canada and IIDEX/NeoCon Canada, invited Canadian architects and interior designers to submit new and extensively renovated hotels completed between January 1, 2008, and December 31, 2010. We were looking for projects that raise the bar of hotel design while enriching the travel experience. Pick up a copy of enRoute’s September issue or visit the magazine at enroute.aircanada.com to read the full article. You can also follow us on Twitter @enRouteOnline and like us on Facebook. On September 22, enRoute will honour the winners at an awards presentation at the IIDEX/NeoCon Canada design conference in Toronto.

***

For more information on enRoute and the awards, please contact:

Jean-François Légaré, enRoute senior editor

514-840-5308

jlegare@spafax.com

For more information on IDC, please contact:

Sarah Brown, IDC communications coordinator

416-649-4442

sbrown@idcanada.org

For more information on IIDEX/NeoCon Canada, please contact:

Annette Borger

416-988-7086

annette@integralcommunications.com

About enRoute: enRoute is published by Spafax Canada Inc, one of the world’s leading providers of custom content marketing solutions. Magazines published by Spafax include Air Canada’s award-winning enRoute, Fairmont for Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, Experience for Bombardier Business Aircraft, Mercedes-Benz magazine for Mercedes-Benz Canada and a host of other titles, e-zines, apps and websites. Spafax is a part of tenthavenue, a newly created division within WPP, created to bring innovative content and sales solutions to mobile consumers around the world. WPP is one of the world’s leading communications companies.

About IDC: The Interior Designers of Canada (IDC) is the National Advocacy organization for interior designers in Canada representing over 3,500 registered and intern interior designers and 1,500 student members across the country. IIDEX/NeoCon Canada is owned by IDC and managed by MMPI Canada.

About IIDEX/ NeoCon Canada: IIDEX/NeoCon Canada is Canada’s National Design Expo & Conference for designers, architects, facility managers, builders, developers, manufacturers, sustainable experts and end-users in all areas of design — workplace, healthcare, retail, residential, architecture, sustainable design and hospitality. Now in its 27th year, IIDEX is owned by the Interior Designers of Canada and managed by MMPI Canada and attracts 350 exhibitors and 15,000 attendees from across Canada and the bordering U.S. States.

We’re proud of our role as innovators in the world of inflight entertainment and the people behind that reputation. That’s why we’re really pleased to announce that Sue Pinfold, Executive Vice President for IFE (Inflight Entertainment) for EMEA, is being awarded with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Airline Passenger Experience Association (APEX).

Sue served on the APEX board (formerly known as the WAEA) from 2000-2009 and has held key roles within the industry since starting out as a tour operator 30 years ago. She’s been a major player in the development of every innovation in the industry – from the creation of tape duplication management systems through to the advent of AVOD and back to tape again – by helping get the word out about the potential cassette shortage following the tsunami in Japan.

Since joining Spafax in 1998, she’s played a vital role in the development of our IFE and content services and has helped grow the client base, recently leading the team who won the prestigious Lufthansa Group account.

Sue will receive her award at the APEX EXPO to be held in Seattle this September. Check back then for a more thorough homage to her and her career and a link to an article in APEX’s brand new magazine, Experience.

In the meantime – and on behalf of everyone at Spafax – we’d like to congratulate her on this singular achievement!

Sparksheet, our multiplatform media and marketing magazine has jumped to yet another platform. Sparksheet’s award-winning content can now be consumed in the form of an iPad app!

The app was designed and developed in-house by the Spafax Interactive team. Here are the details straight from Sparksheet editor Dan Levy:

The folks who brought you the Sparksheet newsletter, the Sparksheet e-book, and the Sparksheet iPhone app are proud to present the new Sparksheet iPad App, ­and it’s available – for free – in the iTunes App Store!

As you know, we’re big believers in making content accessible to people wherever they may be – at home, on the go, or even in the air. So the Sparksheet iPad App is just one more platform for you to access our award-winning think pieces, Q&As, videos and other original and curated content.

Unlike some other magazine brands (you know who you are), we’re not trying to reinvent the wheel with a flashy-but-clunky app that puts design before content, and print before digital. Besides, Sparksheet.com – our newly redesigned website – is already optimized for the iPad and all sorts of different screens and mobile devices.

The Sparksheet iPad App keep things simple, searchable and clean – just the way we like it. Let us know what you think!