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The US seizes an oil tanker near Venezuela. Plus: Should countries hold elections during wartime?
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Every day, the world presents you with hundreds of headlines. What do you believe? Who do you trust? The Financial Times cuts through complexity with clarity, accuracy and global perspective. Its journalism is guided by independence, not agendas. That's why leaders in business, policy and culture turn to one trusted source for facts, for insight, for what matters next. Source FT Read more and subscribe@ft.com you're listening to the Monocle Daily, first broadcast.
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On 11 December 2025 on Monacle Radio. The United States helps itself to an oil tanker off Venezuela. The United States also wants to read all your social media posts. And Time Magazine announces its 2025 Person of the Year. Put the champagne on ice. Liz Truss, I'm Andrew Muller. The Monocle Daily starts now. Hello and welcome to the Monocle Daily, coming to you from our studios here at Midori House in London. I'm Andrew Muller. My guests Julie Norman and Jonathan Fenby will discuss today's big stories. And we'll have another report from our team at the recently concluded international luxury travel market in Cass. Stay tuned. All that and more coming up right here on the Monocle Daily. This is the Monocle Daily. I'm Andrew Muller and I'm joined today by Julie Norman, associate professor of Politics and International Relations at UCL & Co Author of the new book the Dream and the Nightmare, and by Jonathan Fenby, journalist, author of many books and former editor of the South China Morning Post. Hello to you.
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A
Both.
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B
Hello. Hello, Julie. First of all, we will mention your book again, which we don't object to doing at all because it's great. I've read it and I know that for a fact. But reintroduce it to our listeners, if you would, especially those who are still looking for Christmas presents for the Middle east weirdo in their.
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A
Life. Indeed, what could be better? So my new book, the Dream and the Nightmare is out right now. It's really just a very comprehensive story, a biography, if you will, of Gaza, about how things got to this point. And it's infused with a lot of stories, quotes, memories from Gazans and as well as from Israel. So it's a very personal, human book and it's coming out as an ebook and an audiobook on January.
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B
6Th. And Jonathan, do any of your books in particular make ideal Christmas gifts? Don't go through all of.
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C
Them. Oh, all of.
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B
Them. We'll be here all.
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Night. We'd be here all night. As if I went through them all. I just say, although time has passed, given what's happening in the world, my last book Crucible, which is about the setting up of the world order after the Second World War, is still.
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Valid. Just about.
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Possible. Good.
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Title. Yes. Yeah. Well, it's what we're.
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Losing. Well, on that happy thought, we will start in the waters off Venezuela where helicopter borne US Troops have boarded an oil tanker, an action gloatingly broadcast by the U.S. department of Homeland Security in a clip to which they added the dignified soundtrack of LL Cool J's 1990 hit Mama Said Knock youk Out. The ship is the tanker skipper currently flying the flag of Guiana, though without permission to do so, according to guinea maritime authorities. U.S. attorney General Pam Bondi claimed that skipper had for a number of years been involved in an illicit oil shipping network supporting forest foreign, rather terrorist organizations, while Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro called it an act of piracy. Julie There has of course been a great deal of controversy about the United States behavior in the waters of the Caribbean in recent weeks. But if this tanker, as appears to be the case, was flying a false flag, has been under US sanctions, has the US in fact done the right and proper thing.
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Here? I would say again, this is in a much broader context of the U.S. i think, carrying out 80 different types of operations over the last several months off the shores of Venezuela and elsewhere in the Caribbean, more in the forms of strikes. This is the first time that it's been kind of an active takeover in this way. But this still seems quite out of bounds from the usual way of doing things. Even when there have been sanctions, even a false flag kind of situation. It's not typical for another country to go in and do something like this and to at least up till now kind of seize the assets, the oil for themselves. So this is definitely crossing a different type of line and it's certainly within a bigger picture of increasing pressure on Maduro and on.
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Venezuela. Well, indeed. So, Jonathan, President Trump has somewhat shrugged about the oil on board that I don't know, we'll probably keep it or words to that effect. But the ship is owned as far as anybody is able to figure it out, by Triton Navigation, which is based in the Marshall Islands, linked by the US treasury to Viktor Artymov, who is a Ukrainian with alleged links to Hezbollah and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Again, if all that is true, is seizing this boat necessarily the wrong thing to.
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Do? It's not necessarily the wrong thing to do, except it's incoherent in the sense that why were the earlier boats, smaller boats blown up and everybody on them killed rather than being seized if you can seize a tanker, which Trump was very keen to say in his announcement of this was the biggest seizure ever of a tanker, he's always got to be biggest. He's always going to be superlative. If you can do that, why couldn't you have seized any of the alleged drug.
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Boats? Well, a fair question to which we've not yet had a reasonable answer.
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Because there is no reasonable answer. We're in the world of Trump and Cy Stallone being hailed as, you know, the greatest ever actor at the Kennedy center in Washington the other week. And this just follows on from Trump, wake up and I'll do something.
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Today. Is it, though part of, to the extent that it is coherent, Julie, part of a pattern of what we have seen of pressure on coercion of Venezuela to what ends? We're still not entirely.
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Sure. Oh, yes. I mean, it's definitely part of the bigger picture. And I would say not just Venezuela, but even for the Western Hemisphere. And we saw some of that come out in the new national security Strategy this week, where there's literally a reference to kind of a Trump addendum to the old Monroe Doctrine kind of that the US has essentially a carte blanche to control the Western Hemisphere. So I think this is one of several examples of Trump really trying to flex his muscle, really trying to position the US as the sole superpower, doing what they want and will do in this part of the world, and trying to take out any other threats, especially in this case Venezuelan oil that is sold, I think about 80% to China. So a lot of this is kind of broader geopolitics, but really targeting places in the hemisphere where the US Feels it has almost a right under Trump to take these kinds of.
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Actions. Of course, China has a lot of has put in a lot of investment into Venezuelan oil, as you mentioned, over the last few years, and also is doing the same thing on the west coast in Peru. So we'll see how Trump reacts to that if she gives him a nasty phone call one.
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Night. Well, predictably, Jonathan, President Maduro, aside from calling the United States pirates and buccaneers and Corsairs and everything else of that ilk he can think of, he's trying to frame this, that this demonstrates that what the United States wants is to seize Venezuela's oil. Obviously, this is a thing that the United States has been accused of before, even if it is vastly cheaper and easier to buy someone's oil than steal it. But is that narrative going to land, do you.
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Think? No, it's not, because Maduro is Clearly a very bad character who should be got rid of. And indeed, the opposition leader was getting the Nobel Peace Prize this week, which we've seen. But the question, I think, really, if you come down to it, and there's no way of proving this, that Trump has found his ideal opponent in this, you know, it's a good boxing match for him, or he thinks it.
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Is. Can he do this forever though, Julie? Because the thing is that the United States now has an extremely significant maritime contingent in the waters off Venezuela. It is not a cheap thing to do to maintain a flotilla of that size indefinitely. And surely the longer this goes on, the more you risk looking just a bit silly if you do absolutely nothing at the end of.
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It. Yeah, I mean, I think this is starting to get close to that line and it's getting a lot more domestic pressure, I think maybe than Trump even expected. And that was with the double strike attack last week in particular that we've talked about before here. But just to say a president who doesn't get much internal criticism from his party, these actions regarding Venezuela is dividing the party. It is getting pushback. It is actually mobilizing Congress a little bit to say, hold on, wait a minute, much less the more strategic operational things of how long do you keep kind of doing this and what are eventually going to be some of the costs. So again, I think this is going to be part of a broader kind of thing for Trump, but I'm not sure what his next moves are here. And it's been very unclear what even his own end game would.
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Be. Just to follow that up, Julie, as the tables token American, what's your understanding of loyal, though? Trump's base have been astonishingly loyal, really, all things considered, for more than a decade. Do you think they would go along with significant military action in Venezuela? I mean, you can see that America might get away with blowing a few things up and saying we blew up some drug dealer stuff. But Trump has hinted that there might actually be some sort of ground operation. Would there be any appetite for.
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That? I think very little. I think there is a part of the party that kind of likes the guns blazing, like show we can blow things up sort of thing. But in general, most of the party and most of both parties, I would say, are pretty non interventionist right now. And certainly there's very little appetite for regime change type policy across the political spectrum in the US and I would say across most of the world right now. So I think it would be very difficult for them to carry on in that regard. And I think there's going to be a tipping point that they might step over almost accidentally and get in a little bit too deep, even for their own.
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Supporters. Indeed. I mean, Trump, interestingly, while dumping on Maduro all the time, he's been very cautious in talking about regime change, which would mean boots on the ground, basically. And Heg said, you know, the War Secretary is the ideal man for the.
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Moment. Well, to the United States now, or alternatively not, if you have at any point in the last five years or so made any amount of fun on social media of the Great Helmsman. Under a new proposal being contemplated by U.S. customs and Border Protection, putative visitors to the U.S. may have to furnish access to the last five years of their social media posts, plus every email address and phone number they have contacted in that period. To be clear, this is not law as yet and may well be Revised, probably when U.S. customs and Border Protection employees realise they're going to have to scroll through five years worth of people's pictures of their dogs and passive aggressive complaints about late trains. Julie, again, this is where we blame you for everything the United States does. It is worth noting that as of the last time I got my I visa for foreign press who work occasionally in the United States renewed, they did ask for social media handles. This is not necessarily an entirely new thing, and this may be naive of me, but my view was, you know, it's all public anyway, so knock yourselves out. Is this any more sinister than.
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That? Well, I will say my initial impression too was like, okay, if it's social media, you put it out there like it's not that secret to like find it. But I think what we've seen we can look to as indicators is for, for more long term visa applications for students and others, and those have changed already, that not only providing the handles but required to make all your accounts public. Obviously many people keep them private, especially if they're saying controversial things. And some of it I think is just to have a chilling effect, to make people be more careful about what they post or to simply not come to the US if they happen to be critical. So some of it I think is just a bit of a scare tactic rather than, like you said, actually having civil servants sitting there like reading through people's socials. But it does give that sense that we can look and we can find things if we want to, even whether that happens or.
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Not. The chilling effect, though, Jonathan, may well be manifested in people just deciding, well, I'm just not going to go to the United States, there are other countries. And just anecdotally I know many people myself who have made that decision. Has that not occurred to the administration or do they.
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Not? There are a lot of other people who will have to go to the United States for their own interests or because of their jobs or who knows what and so on. And they are likely to be more.
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Careful. But this still means fewer people going and spending.
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Money. Yeah, I mean I, I was wondering today, I mean having written several uncomplimentary things about the Donald on various chat groups, if I would willingly take a plane across the Atlantic and you.
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Wouldn'T be alone in that, Julie. This, this line, they are floating that. They're also going to want every email address and phone number that you may have contacted in that same period. I mean it takes honestly to Rene Visa most of a day to fill out the forms for that. As it is. The first question is pretty much what was your first memory? And then you have to tell your entire life story. But this is obviously absolutely outrageous and this is it. Thinking too far into it to think this is just a way of keeping journalists out of the United States because no self respecting reporter is going to fill that.
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In. Yeah, I mean I guess I thought it was all the email addresses and phone numbers that yourself had had, which even that I could not remember all the email addresses and stuff that I've had. But if it's, if it's for others, that's kind of insane. But no, I think, like I said, I think a lot of this right now is just making a show that they are doing this. I think a lot of the concern is more for people applying for visas but it's gonna have a huge knock on effect for tourists. And we've talked before, the World cup is coming up, the Olympics are coming up and still under Trump's. And you're gonna just completely turn off many people who would be wanting to come to the US for these events as well as for the normal things people come.
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For. And it's sits very badly with all the talk about freedom of.
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Speech. Of course, of course, yeah. But as we have now, none.
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Of the proponents of the freedom of speech attack on Europe, the Vances and so on, will take any notice of.
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This.
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Right. Of our complaints.
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Whinging. But does it make any, I mean again, does it make any logical sense in particular six months out from a World cup where you are agreeing to invite the world literally to your country? And just looking at the fixtures, Jonathan, the first game is Mexico versus South which on form could be played in front of an empty stadium. Also qualifying Haiti, Iran, Colombia, Algeria, Ecuador, etc, etc, etc. This has the makings of an astonishing.
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Shambles. It does like much that Trump.
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Does, but does can you see where.
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Can you run fast enough to keep ahead of the.
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Game? Well, not so far, but do you perceive any logic from the administration's point of view? What are they trying to do here? Is there a reason why you would do things which are going to have the effect of scaring people off at a moment which you're supposed to be trying to invite them.
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In? No. I would guess that somebody like Stephen Miller or one of the apparatchiks who said to Trump, why don't we ask people to divulge everything on their social media account? And he, Trump would have said, yeah, good.
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Idea. I mean, Julie, are you noticing in your interactions with your fellow Americans that this sort of thing is starting to register? Because again, just going back to my own experience, the number of people I know who in the last 11 months have decided, yeah, that conference I usually go to, I'm not going to go to that trip I usually take to the United States, I'm not going to do. I know several friendship and family groups who usually meet in the United States, transatlantic groups, that is, who have instead decided, let's just all go to Canada. So everyone just agrees to meet there. But are people in the United States beginning to notice.
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This? You know, I wish I could say yes, but I really don't think so. I mean, Americans who have traveled outside or those of us who are outside, obviously you hear it, but I think internally people are not quite aware of these things. And this isn't a knock on Americans that, oh, Americans don't travel. I think the country is huge. There's a reason why a lot of people don't, but it's just a reality that I don't think people are that focused on this. And partly that's because people are concerned with other effects of Trump's policies like affordability and the tariffs and ice raids and these other things that are really affecting Americans much more front.
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On. He's trying to distract attention from that. The affordability above all with everything like this, like.
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Venezuela. Yeah, perhaps. And I agree with you too. I think a lot of this is, this is probably something from the Stephen Miller camp of things. It gets thrown out there. It gets a lot of political support from the MAGA base and doesn't actually like go into practice by the time of the World cup. Questionable, but it at Least kind of feeds that beast within the.
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Party. Well, to Ukraine now and to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's ongoing efforts to forestall the peace deal which the United States and Russia are attempting to foist upon his country. Among the many bad faith complaints made by the Ukraine, skeptical among American conservatives is that President Zelensky has served beyond his mandated term, which would have expired in May 2024 had Russia not attacked in February 2022. However, under the strictures of martial law imposed by President Zelenskyy at that time, elections were suspended. Zelenskyy is now suggesting that elections could be held so long as the security of the vote was guaranteed by the US and other allies. Julie, is this possibly quite cunning of Zelen? He's saying that, yes, basically, we can hold an election, but you're going to have to send.
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Soldiers. Exactly. I mean, to me, this is a very smart move by Zelensky at a moment when he knows, you know, things are very, are very tight right now with the negotiations. There's also been a lot of scrutiny of him and his government because of corruption charges. So this is a way to say, like, yeah, of course we're open for elections, but give us those security guarantees. That'll move us forward on a lot of other fronts that are probably a bit more. Seem a bit more urgent to.
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Him because, Jonathan, absent those security guarantees, the idea of holding an election in Ukraine now is somewhat preposterous, isn't.
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It? It is completely ridiculous, ludicrous. There the idea, I mean, it could only serve Putin's purposes, dividing the country. Who would the opposition be? I don't, I can't envisage.
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It. Well, there is opposition in.
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Ukraine. There is opposition, but, but it's opposition of a kind, which Trump would find even more, even less.
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Palatable. Is there something to be said for it, though, if it can be done, Julie, as a demonstration of democratic goodwill? Because on the subject of opposition, I did when I was in Odessa in June, I think it was, I spoke to an opposition MP and asked him about this. And this is somebody obviously, who opposes President Zelensky. And he said, basically, as we've been discussing, of course, we can't hold an election. It's absurd. Millions of people have left the country. Hundreds of thousands of people are at the front. It would obviously be dangerous and risky and provide the Russians with targets. And then he went on to say, he said, that's the sort of serious answer. We were just chatting. He said, I'll now give you the Politicians answer. He said, the reason I don't want there to be an election is that we'd lose. He said President Zelenskyy is not as uniquely, completely revered as he was maybe a couple of years ago, but he's still basically extremely.
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Popular. Yeah. And I think just as long as the war is going on, that will probably be the case. And so the opposition knows that. And I would say again, I think Zelenskyy knows he needs to signal to the us, to Europe, that he's open to this. But in reality, logistically, everyone knows it'd be very difficult. And secondly, he knows that he kind of needs to see things through and he's positioned himself well. He's set up all these relationships with, you know, with world leaders, with governments. And I think there's a lot of sense, sense within Ukraine that he is still the person who, if there's going to be a way out of this and a resolution that is palatable, he is still the one that people probably trust the.
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Most. If this is President Zelensky, Jonathan, basically daring Ukraine's allies to send troops and provide peacekeepers and those security guarantees, is anyone likely to take him up on.
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It? No, I think not. So the whole idea goes away, evaporates, and Trump once more is left waking up thinking, oh, what's new for.
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Today? Well, moving along now to Time magazine, which has announced its Person of the year for 2025, except that it hasn't. Times editors have done that thing they do every so often of awarding it to a bunch of people. In this instance, the so called architects of AI Included in the COVID illustration are Elon Musk, Jensen Huang, Mark Zucker, Zuckerberg and Sam Altman, among others. Time, explaining its choice, said, thanks to the AI titans, humanity is now flying down the highway, all gas, no brakes, towards a highly automated and highly uncertain future. Given that one does not fly down a highway, it is tempting to speculate that Time bought into the spirit of the thing by getting ChatGPT to write its metaphors. First of all, just wondering if anybody at the table has written two biographies of previous winners of this accolade which might still be available in all good stores. Jonathan? Probably, yes, yes. Chiang Kai Shek and Charles de.
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Gaulle. Yeah, Charles de Gaulle. Yes, they were different. And I mean, I think this is a cop out, largely as you intimated just.
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Now. What do you think, Julie? Is it a cop out? Did they not want to give it to just Elon Musk by himself and wear the opprobrium that would have Descended upon.
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Them. Yeah. I mean, often I don't like the cop outs, but I do feel something like AI, you always needed to with this one. Like, I think to elevate one of the AI entrepreneurs over the others would almost be like a bigger like disservice. And I, and I feel like. I know Sam Altman was like talked about a lot, obviously, you know, but I do think at this moment, one reason AI is where it is is because you've had these different jockeying actors all like moving forward and that's individuals as well as, you know, countries and states doing this also. So for this particular issue, which I do think was right to highlight as kind of the issue of the year, if you will, it was more of a collective and I'm actually kind of relieved that they didn't just pick a musk or someone else who's a lot of problematic characters in this group, but as a collective has created this technology that is going to change all of our lives very.
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Quickly. Yeah. And is basically running the administration in.
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Washington. As far as one can tell, Jonathan, you have by now lived through any number of upheavals, revolutions and turnovers in the media environment, etc. And Lord knows I can remember having a typewriter on my desk in the first job I have. Are you framed against that journey? Are you a fan or unfan of.
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AI? So far I can see that AI can do a lot of things, but I still think, and probably I'm an 18th century scribe in this, I still see it as a mechanism rather than as an.
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Initiator. Have you actually tried using.
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It? I've tried using it and what I came up with was not very impressive, I must say. On the other hand, I must say my son is a tremendous believer in it. So we have endless.
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Arguments. What is it about it he.
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Believes in, that it can do that. It can move beyond the purely mechanistic element of putting together things that have already been written and already been thought.
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B
Of. Julie, what's been your experience of it? If we narrow it down to this year, as Time magazine has with this in academia? Because I have attempted to use it as a journalistic research tool a few times. But what I've always been struck by whenever I've asked it about things that I do actually know quite a lot about, it just spews out stuff that. And I just find yourself in the ridiculous position of typing into a screen. But that's just bollocks. That's. That's not even.
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Close. Yeah, that's pretty Much what I write in my student comments for my feedback when assessments too? No, not exactly. I mean, I would say for us, for academia, it's changed things tremendously. And obviously students are using ChatGPT AI all the time. But one of the things we try and do in classrooms is exactly that, is we actually intentionally bring it up, have them put in prompts, and then we go through and analyze where is it wrong and how do you need to be a discerning person and student and scholar to be able to kind of find that. But with that said, I do think it's getting better and better, like by the day. And a lot of what we see now is like, oh, ha ha, look how bad it is. Is. Is going to be very obsolete very.
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Soon. But it still doesn't really get jokes, particularly not.
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Puns. That's good to know because I love.
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It. Try it, try it on a few.
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Puns. But yeah, I mean, I think, I think where we see it, like, I. I think in number crunching and data crunching, like that kind of thing, I see a lot of value in my colleagues in like, in medicine and, you know, health, a lot of that kind of stuff say it's like, groundbreaking. But I think for those of us in the social sciences, humanities, a lot of us who are writers, these kinds of things, we still see such value in that craft. And for me, with my students, I'm like, the writing process is the thinking process. And they're like, what country are you from? But it's so true. And so I'm like, we need to still hold onto those skills. But I think some of the questions and things we'll be dealing with with AI in this next year are much beyond just chatgpt in the classroom. They're going to be like, it's going to be at such levels and things that I think are even just not foreseeable to someone like myself to bring it.
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B
Back. Jonathan, just finally to the craft that we all do pursue at some level or another. Are you optimistic at all about what AI might do for it? Do you think it actually can be a useful.
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Accessory? It can be a very useful accessory. It can basically get rid of a lot of dog's body work, as one calls it, used to call it. But then the question is, do we then build on that for something more thoughtful than AI can do? I hope.
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So. Yeah. And even in that, I would just say too, for me, I like the idea of there being different types of voices in writing. And I think even I'm starting To see in emails, in a lot of my student essays, there's a certain uniformity of just the voice. And I miss kind of. And I tell my students, let me hear your voice in your.
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Essays. That is very true indeed. You can tell when something has been put through AI. Basically, when somebody sends me something and I go back to them and say, that's AI, isn't it? They usually say, yes, because there is a uniformity, as I say, a lack of.
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Humanity. Yeah. Or humor, like you said, too. Like, it's smoother, but it kind of lacks, like. Yeah, it lacks the thing that lets me know what the person's character.
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B
Is. So, Julie Norman and Jonathan Fenby, thank you both for joining us. Finally, on today's show, it is off to the Cote du Jour for the international luxury travel market. Earlier this month, Monocle Radio was in Cannes speaking to some of the biggest, biggest names in the luxury hospitality sector. At the event, Laura Kramer caught up with Anthony Ingham, Rosewood's new coo. She started by asking him about the group's newest.
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D
Openings. Yes, we have some exciting new hotels coming. I'm actually going from here straight to Courchevel after this week where Rosewood Courchevel is nearly ready. So we have many people there sort of putting the final touches on. That hotel is 51 rooms. Ski in, ski out at the top of Courchevel, 1850. And it's really looking beautiful. So that's our first ski resort. So it's very.
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E
Exciting. You're the second person who said they're just opening their first ski resort. Where's the appetite coming from for.
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D
That? I don't know. I mean, I think. I mean, I can tell you my personal view. Right. So I love skiing. So I think that, like, in a busy, busy world where everyone is kind of stretched, there are sports that take your mind off the everyday, and skiing is one of them. So when you ski, you're kind of up there in the mountains with the blue sky, and you can have a very kind of escape from it all experience, even for just two or three days. And for me, I completely disconnect. And so three days skiing is like a week's holiday on a beach for me because my brain is occupied trying to avoid hitting a tree or falling over when I hit a mogul, but it's really disconnecting. It's a beautiful.
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E
Experience. When you look across the portfolio. Do you think everyone's moving at the same speed right now? Because it does kind of seem we're in the multi Speed world, Where's the smart growth that you see? Where are the opportunities and the.
- [29:43]
D
Challenges? We're very careful in selecting new hotels for Rosewood, especially now as the brand has become more known and we actually have a lot of demand for developers who want to build the Rosewood Hotel. And so it is a luxury to be able to choose and to make sure that we're choosing destinations that are going to enable us to create a really meaningful experience for consumers. And so an extraordinary amount of thought goes into creating each Rosewood hotel. Many of the ones that we opened this year, like the Chancery and Rosewood Amsterdam in early 27, Rosewood Calistoga, these hotels are 10 years in the making. And every little detail of the experience is thought through and designed with intent. And that kind of hotel warrants specific destinations. It's not a sort of exercise of putting a Rosewood wherever we.
- [30:36]
E
Could. And then when you do decide the next opening is going to be here, tell us actually about the openings in 2026 that we can look forward.
- [30:43]
D
To. So next after Courchevel will be Rosewood Amala in Red Sea in Saudi Arabia. So that's a well being orientated resort which will be 100% powered by sustainable energy. And so I think this is going to be a fabulous example of a new resort destination in the Red Sea. We are also going to open our first hotel in Greece, the Blue palace in Crete, a very authentically Greek hotel. So from its design direction, from its culinary offering, from all the of of the vegetables being grown on site, and even we have a program where the staff can grow vegetables in their family plots and sell them to the hotels. So we have organic produce coming from the staff's family plots on Crete because there's a tradition in Crete where all of the local families typically have like a plot where they grow their own vegetables. So there's something lovely about the Greekness of the Blue palace that we're going to be.
- [31:38]
E
Experiencing. We have been speaking a lot lately about retaining talent, training up talent, the importance of hospitality, but also the collaboration with the local community. That's something sounds like it's exactly.
- [31:48]
D
That. It is. And it's a core part of Rosewood's DNA to contribute to the communities where we operate, to provide opportunities for local workforce, to educate local workforce, but also to get our guests to engage with what makes that destination special. Because from our guest point of view, they're looking for experiences that shape them, that are meaningful, that help them connect with place and connect with each other in a much more meaningful way. And obviously we provide A level of luxury and comfort in doing that. But it's much more profound experience than simply a luxury.
- [32:21]
E
Hotel. Let's use the Greek example. It's somewhere most of us have been. We know it very well. But how do you create a sort of sense of discovery and excitement for guests who have been everywhere and done everything in locations like.
- [32:36]
D
That? I think it's coming back to the simple things that make a place and its people special. And actually, the world is an extraordinary place full of incredible diversity of culture and geography, flora and fauna, and the most beautiful things are often the simplest. And in a crazy, busy world where everything's digital and everything's AI driven, I think connecting people to. To those simple, beautiful things is actually really powerful. And that is something that I see our customers really looking for, that.
- [33:14]
E
Disconnection from the technology, from the AI that we're kind of inundated.
- [33:18]
D
With. I think it's. If you find something which is meaningful enough to you, so something that you're really interested in and curious about, and it's something that touches you, you automatically disconnect from the noise around you because you found something that's actually really grabbing your attention, and that itself is a.
- [33:33]
E
Detox. I love that. What cities or destinations do you think have really come back to life? Because it does seem there are certain cities where work from home culture, for example, is still a little bit more dominant. Other ones that are really buzzy. And I just wondered, which ones do you think are still a little sleepy or up and coming in terms of the energy.
- [33:53]
D
Levels? I mean, Rome's an interesting one, right? So we have Rosewood Rome is going to open at the end of 2016. And from a hospitality point of view, Rome has all of a sudden boomed as a destination for luxury tourists. And it's kind of surprising because I think Rome has been Rome for millennia, but it's having a real renaissance from a luxury tourism perspective. So we're very excited about Rosewood Rome. It's going to be in a historic ex bank headquarters. So one of the most famous banks in Italy history. It was their headquarters on Via Veneto. And it's a modernist building built sort of around the nine in the. In the beginning of the 1900s. And what I love about it is that there's a DNA in that bank building of La Dolce Vita. So the way that that bank operated in the 30s and 40s was very hospitality and entertainment driven. So the way business deals were done in Italy in the 1930s and 40s was around food and wine and hospitality and entertaining. So we're trying to extract that DNA and bring it back to. Into the hotel as we reinvent that, that historic.
- [34:54]
B
Building. And that was Anthony Ingham, Rosewood's coo, speaking to Monocle's Laura Kramer. That is it for this edition of the Monocle Daily. Thanks to our panelists today, Julie Norman and Jonathan Fenby. Today's show was produced by Monica Lillis and researched by Joanna Moser. Our sound engineer was Steph Chongu. I'm Andrew Muller here in London. The Daily is back at the same time tomorrow. Thanks for.
- [35:14]
D
Listening.