NEW PRODUCT EXPERIENCE EVENT

It’s perhaps not earth shattering news, but big enough to warrant the issuance of press release via PR.com. The news is that the Dream Villa Siem Reap guesthouse is being renamed Angkor Dream Villa.

This apparently is “after three months of extensive upgrade.” The press release then bangs on repeatedly about “the development of the new suite product,” without actually explaining what a “suite product” is, new or otherwise.

But Man About presumes “suite product” refers to an actual suite, and indeed the press release does later talk about a “new River View Suite” which not only has a “massive king bed,” but also a “day bed.” But bloody hell, why do marketing people and press release writers have to come up with crappy new jargon to describe what they are trying to describe. Is a “new suite product” meant to impress us more than a “new suite?”

This sort of supposedly impressive gobbledygook is engineered by the same people who attach “event” or “experience” to every possible occasion, so that we no longer simply have weather, but we have “weather events,” and we no longer enjoy dining but undergo “dining experiences.” Spare us, please.

MINE CLEARING PHOTO SHOW

Mine clearing NGO Mines Advisory Group (MAG) will host a photo exhibition to help celebrate its twentieth anniversary.

The exhibition, titled IMPACT: Clearing Cambodia’s Deadly Legacy, will preview at FCC Angkor in Siem Reap on Friday November 30 from 7pm-9pm, and run throughout December.

The collection of black and white photographs spanning two decades was taken by photojournalist Sean Sutton while working for MAG. According to MAG, “The images tell powerful stories, showing the struggles and triumphs faced by survivors as they emerge from war and begin battling a new set of challenges in the aftermath of conflict.

The exhibition also demonstrates and celebrates MAG’s work to clear the explosive legacy of conflict.”

NEW AIR SERVICE FROM PATTAYA

Interestingly, with local ‘airline’ Air Hanuman seemingly taking a hiding over its doomed Pattaya charter flight plans, along comes a pretender to the empty throne.

Online news Service Pattaya One declares that, “As Thailand prepares for the ASEAN Free Trade Agreement to be implemented in 2015, Solar Air, which is a small Thai airline, is expanding to ensure it can offer flights to destinations within Thailand which have previously not been available from the airport, along with flights to and from Siam Reap in Cambodia.”

Perhaps no point in mentioning that it’s Siem Reap, not Siam Reap.

Anyway, Solar Air is partnering with the South Pattaya-based Maxx Royal Tour Company to operate the flights from the Utapao Airport 50kms from Pattaya, the same airport Air Hanuman was to use.

MORE PHOTO FEST NEWS

McDermott Gallery Old Market will hold two photography exhibitions by seven photographers as part of the eighth annual Angkor Photo Festival. All work on display is chosen by festival curator, Françoise Callier.

The shows will run simultaneously from December 2, 2012 to January 2, 2013. Photographers are Cuban multi-award winner Mario Algaze, and six photographers representing Tanto Tempo Gallery in Kobe, Japan:  Yukichi Watabe, Hiroshi Watanabe, Yoshihiro Hagiwara, Toshiya Watanabe, Ai Takahashi and Norihisa Hosaka.