Catering Forum served up on the high seas

This year's Catering Forum is to take place on the high seas aboard the P&O cruise ship MV Oriana.

Offering a unique opportunity for informal meetings and a more intensive series of arranged one-to-one business meetings scheduled through a unique appointment system, the event provides a structured arena for establishing business contacts, problem solving, networking with peers and debating the hospitality industry’s hot topics and latest innovations.

Mountaineer and motivational speaker Bear Grylls, who is the youngest Briton to climb Everest, acclaimed for his constructive approach to adversity, will give the opening address. This opening session will be presented as a searching interview, conducted by Television and Radio News Journalist Nick Hyam from the BBC.

Bear spent three years with the British Special Forces, before being severely injured in a horrific parachute accident. Three years later, after intensive rehabilitation he overcame the odds and became the youngest to reach the summit of Everest. He is not only known for his outstanding courage but for his lively and inspirational presentations. Nick Higham, media correspondent will be grilling Bear on his mountain experiences and the session will aim to reveal how these concepts can be applied in the hospitality business.

In addition to this entertaining commentator and travel journalist Alan Whicker, no stranger to the cruise ship environment, has been lined up to give the closing speech. Whicker, celebrating the forty-third year of his television career for both the BBC and independent television networks, has traveled the world in search of eccentric and socially revealing characters.

The annual three-day Catering Forum, which is considered as one of the most important gatherings for senior decision-makers within the hospitality industry, was first floated in 1996.

For more information on the Catering Forum 2002 which will be held from June 6 to 9 visit the website at www.cateringforum.com

(LS/SP)