MANAGEMENT RIGHTS BUYOUT

VICTORIA Angkor Resort’s dynamic general manager Hanno Stamm says he’s a happy man following news that the Vietnam-based Thien Minh Travel Joint-Stock Company has bought the management rights to the hotel here in Siem Reap.

“That’s good news to me,” Stamm declares.

According to VietNews, Thien Minh Travel recently spent $45 million to buy a hotel parcel from EEM Victoria (HK) Ltd, a subsidiary of the French-based holding company Electricité et Eaux de Madagascar SA.

The purchase includes five Victoria-branded hotels in Vietnam and management rights to the Victoria Angkor Resort in Siem Reap, all of which were controlled by the Victoria Vietnam Hotel Management Company.

Stamm, who has had considerable experience working with the Victoria group in Vietnam, welcomes the change because it will bring “a lot of synergy” to the group’s operations.

He says Thien Minh Travel is a very professional tourism outfit, with a good financial structure to boost improvements, and it has notched up a proven track record in the business.

PHOTO FEST DATES

DATES for this year’s seventh annual Angkor Photo Festival have been announced – the show will run from November 19 to November 26.

The all-important call for submissions for the festival’s program will be launched next Friday, April 15.

Over the next few weeks more information will be unveiled, particularly about the Angkor Photo Workshops’ news about the Reminders Project Asian Photographers Grant.

A FUNDRAISING PUNT

TAMMY Durand, the founder of Siem Reap NGO ABC’s and Rice, is no slouch when it comes to fundraising and has cooked up some innovative schemes.

The NGO is in the process of building three new classrooms and this necessitates the knocking down of a seven-foot-high concrete wall with sledgehammers.

The Durand solution has been to recruit free and eager labour by turning it into a fundraiser in the form of the Siem Reap Strongman competition. Although that perhaps should be renamed the Siem Reap

Strongperson competition because, as Durand says: “Each participant will pay $5 to enter and receive a T-shirt and lunch. Our aim is to find the strongest man or woman in Siem Reap.”

Some time in May, Durand will be taking a punt on a fundraiser in the form of a charity casino where participants compete in games to earn “ABC dollars” which can then be spent on donated items.

Durand says plans for this are still in the “tentative” stage, but that the charity casino hopefully “will have Vegas-style games such as craps and roulette”.