Category: Life & Style

All living things eat to survive. Some people like to savour what they eat and in the process satisfy their appetite and senses both. Yet there is a different genre of people, who consider food as art and fashion. For them, eating something is not enough, until it was also presented in a fashionable way.

Food fashion is common in the hospitality industry. If you have paid about a thousand bucks for two pieces of potato, some cucumber, and two types of leaves soaked in some thick sauce presented on a white plate in a fashionable Italian restaurant, and have yet felt satisfied, you are a lover of food art.

A different meaning has emerged recently, where food fashion in images is used so sensually that it’s called foodporn. Obviously, it is being used in a totally positive sense, where the image of the food is arousing your senses in such a way that you can’t hold back and feel forced to find it and eat it.

However, the basic need of eating for the sake of eating is essential. Satisfying your senses takes a back seat when satisfying your hunger is more important. The ways of civilized world may be different, and food fashion is supplementary rather than the fundamental need of human beings.

Do you want to achieve more than your current success? Do you feel your life is ordinary? Have a relook at your life and things around. Maybe you are not steering your life yourself. Maybe your life is on auto-pilot like the majority of people in this world. Life on auto-pilot means you have already set a routine for yourself, and you are following it strictly, or the circumstances of your life have taken hold of your needs, desires and dreams.

If you have most of the material objects to make your professional as well as personal life easy, yet you live with a hollowness and unhappiness inside, you need a power vacation!

You can have complete control over yourself and the circumstances – your complete life, by adopting a renewed approach that includes life coaching, emotional freedom techniques (EFT), mindfulness and some other spiritual upliftment technique.

By and large, Power Vacations provide you an opportunity to be away from the daily noise and distractions, without which you would be able to relax and notice amazing things about yourself and everything around you – including your family, friends, nature and emotions that are an essential component of life.

These are competitive times and the way shopping centres are mushrooming, the future looks fierce! So, what’s there round the corner for shopping centres? A perpetual war of prices, prime spaces and footfall? Maybe; however, diversification may help.

First of all, let’s get some things straight. No shopping centre can focus on all types of customers; they must specialize and diversify. Big cities hold more promise for diversification as there is more space. Diversification can at least eliminate competition in terms of footfall to some extent. If advanced markets are studied, a trend towards diversification of shopping centres is already evident. Though diversification usually takes several years, the future of shopping centres would be more promising if they are clear on their goal of diversification.

Amit Puri, the General Manager of Leasing for McARTHUR + COMPANY adds, “Diversification is possible in terms of the tenant mix and the range of products offered to a specific catchment, and most important of all, this message should be communicated clearly to the customers through proper info channels and marketing collaterals within and without the shopping centre.”

The current market is saturated and does not need new but rather more clearly focused yet diversified shopping centres. This is where McARTHUR + COMPANY comes in. The creation of shopping centres that generate strong returns for investors and profitable businesses for retailers is at the heart of the McARTHUR + COMPANY’s approach to shopping centre and mixed-use development, leasing and operations advisory.

In addition, for continual survival and to maintain interest, shopping centres must understand their customers and offer – and adapt where necessary – product and services accordingly. In geographical areas or cities where identical or similar structure of tenants is existant, diversification makes a big difference. However, it is not just distinguishing oneself from the competition, providing the extra edge also leads to a specific catchment area.

Though some shopping centres take it upon themselves to find ways of diversification and differentiation from the competition, some rely on shopping centre specialists.
The cost of diversification is not usually an issue with large centres and big cities. Centres with a high footfall of foreign clientele with high purchasing power are a good example. Advanced markets also find diversification a clear-cut and simple way to attract higher footfall.

These and several other relevant issues are taken care of by the experienced team of experts at shopping centre specialists in the most practical and economical ways.
There is an experienced team of experts at McARTHUR + COMPANY, including its Founder and Managing Director, Phil McArthur, who is an internationally experienced shopping centre specialist with over 35 years in the industry across Asia, the Middle East, Africa and North America.

Furqan Athar, Partner and Director of Strategy and Planning at McARTHUR + COMPANY is also an award-winning Dubai-based retailer and shopping centre investment expert having accumulated over 20 years’ experience in the Middle East’s retail real estate industry.

Amit Puri describes that their strategy in the face of competition “… is to add real financial value to each retail development project. Our team is well-experienced in shopping centre investment, finance, development planning, marketing, as well as retail leasing and management.

“We believe in well-planned, highly popular shopping destinations with long-term financial growth in value. Our philosophy is to use international best practices combined with local knowledge of retail markets and shopping influences to meet each project’s goal.

“We understand retail real estate and shopping centres and what it takes to achieve successful new centres or reinvigorate centres that require new energy. We work closely with global retail chains and large regional groups to assist with their cross-border expansion needs.”

Evaluating the role of other factors, a real differentiator of shopping centres from other types of properties is their dynamism. Effective management through a dedicated team of shopping centre specialists is the only key to smooth and successful functioning.

Strategies may differ: redeveloping a retail centre, expanding to meet the growing demand in response to changing needs and retail trends, or applying sound leasing strategy, without shopping centre specialists it’s difficult to sail through.

Yet other factors that play a major part in the success of any shopping centre include the knowledge, experience, analytical ability, planning and execution in terms of tenancy mix, effective leasing and coordination of occupancy. To discuss a few in detail:

Shopping Centre Management:

Attention to detail and an ability to provide informed and pro-active service to customers with continuous improvement in delivery leads to greater productivity and performance. A balanced strategy helps in maximum returns on investment and minimum risk and cost.

Further, Centre Managers are concerned with the safety of their property, proper services, maintenance of buildings and timely repairs, and above all the Centre should register itself as an inviting destination for shoppers.

This helps in retaining tenants, which is an important strategy in the successful operations of a shopping centre.

Leasing:

Creating a flexible balance in lease terms and conditions against investment performance and mutually beneficial outcomes for both the lessor and lessee is another significant strategy.

Specialists work on all fronts including retail leasing, and rich experience and a long list of contacts may come handy. The end goal is to create a fabulous shopping experience for the customers, and both national and international retailers contribute in that special experience. The productive and profitable Centre is a logical outcome. Re-leasing vacant properties in optimum time keeps that trust and confidence of customers and retailers alike.

Marketing:

Independent and shopping centre properties are distinctly different, and therefore marketing elements play a major part in attracting customers.
Generally a strategic programme, to develop progressive shopping centres keeping in mind effective and cost-efficient solutions, unique to each shopping centre is created by the specialist marketing team. It should take care of the investment type and expected returns by the owners.

Consulting:

The expert opinions on local knowledge, needs and integration are important. Almost all the times, shopping centre specialists have the last say in creating that confidence among the investors.

So, is diversification really the answer?

Focusing on just one group these days doesn’t help. Young and old have different interests and purchasing habits. Customers can be likewise divided into several different types of segments. So, shopping centres must target partially wider and partially overlapping segments of customers. However, diversification is not the only answer. There are several factors that play a role in successful shopping centre projects.

Dubai’s esteemed Jumeirah Group, the Global luxury hospitality brand is celebrating the most serene destinations that encourage the guests to indulge in the magnificient surroundings and gorgeously adorned interiors

While the guests enchant their wanderlust, a lavish accomodation plays an important role. Following the tradition of Dubai to amuse its travellers with panache, the Jumeirah Group has come up with the best-in-class luxury hotels like Burj Al Arab Jumeirah, Jumeirah Al Qasr, Jumeirah Beach Hotel, Jumeirah Creekside Hotel, Jumeirah Dar AL Masyaf, Jumeirah Emirates Towers, Jumeirah Living World Trade Centre Residence, Jumeirah Mina A’Salam and Jumeirah Zabeel Saray Royal Residences. The group has structured some of the most elegant masterpieces across the world and is attracting the classic taste of people from distant continents. Art and affluence offer a whole new perspective to life. Blending the two inspirational aspects together, Jumeirah Group was founded in 1997 for luxury art crusaders to quench their thirst in vogue. The group has one of the most impressive portfolios of luxury hotels and resorts in various parts of the world.

Highly polished virtues

With its reputation for individuality, Jumeirah Group has crafted some of the most exquisite infrastructural marvels in Dubai. Rising magnificently is the sail-shaped silhouette of grandiosity, Al Arab Jumeirah that lends the most aesthetic stays to tourists. With its recently unveiled ‘Best of the Burj’ Signature Dream Experience, Jumeirah the world’s only 7 star hotel has trounced the hospitality business with its niche services. For the spoiled few, the ultraluxe package by Jumeirah includes a Rolls- Royce Phantom pick-up, a luxurious suite, sumptuous dinner and a pivotal spa experience.

Architectural wonder

Dubai likes to flaunt its glory with grand architectural designs; some of them owned by the Jumeirah Group are a perfect example of living the extravagant way. All the hotels and residencies are operational around the year and they offer contemporary warmth, which has its roots in the Arabian hospitality and is attracting intellectuals, artists, and heads of state from all the corners of the world. The guests enjoy the tranquillity of the immensely cavernous arena offered by the Presidential suites at the Jumeirah Group of Hotels, which have expansive glass windows. They offer enthralling landscape of the quaint surrounding.
Each and every room has been designed with utmost intelligence and hence cajoled with the electric furniture, the gulf inspired art and photography. Classic rooms are filled with vivid lights from the best glass roofed atrium. The ocean premium leisure club room king suites are ideal pick for business travellers needing a complacent stay, or for couples wanting a little more space. Jumeirah properties are galvanized by the Arabic indulgence and the group’s classy accommodations offer space for family, friends, business meetings, global conferences and special adaption for the stately few.

Artisan brews and flavours

Every restaurant of the Jumeirah Group properties exhibits a perfect mix of elegance and taste that surpasses all expectations. One such example is the restaurant 360°, at the end of the Marina walkway, Jumeirah Beach Hotel, which is located on the terrace in a quiet and calm environment. It offers the best food coupled with the dazzling scenic environs.
Guests also have the option of enjoying a fine cuppa of coffee at the Palm Court. The six-course authentic Italian cuisine at Carnevale restaurant, Burj Al Arab, makes for an enduring journey with the finest dishes from the vintage Arab kitchen.
Located at the end of the pier at Al Qasr, Madinat Jumeirah, Pierchic is a high-end Mediterranean seafood restaurant. It tickle one’s palate with an over-the-water dining experience, which is certainly an unparalleled experience, anywhere in and around Dubai. The special feature of the restaurant is its à la carte menu of classics including oysters, scallops, sashimi and lobster, as well as an array of fresh fish. It offers a stylish yet elegant dining space, which maximizes the views of the Arabian Gulf, the Dubai coastline, Palm Jumeirah and the iconic Burj Al Arab.

Arty serene crash-pad

At Jumeirah properties, guests find a perfect amalgamation of pampering and rejuvenation in all the spa therapies. Right from the traditional Shiatsu, to Thai, Swedish and Balinese techniques, every spa treatment is aimed at providing maximum benefit. These also hum with the colourful, bright ambience of the hotels. One can get involved in the ultimate odyssey of well-being and resurgence at Jumeirah Spas and revel in a host of facilities for both the mind and body. The spa therapies at the Jumeirah Creekside Hotel are designed to suit the civilized diversity of guests visiting the Jumeirah properties.

Zero-edge Sensation

Pool sides are considered as one of the most fun areas of any hotel. Jumeirah properties makes this fun area into one of the most thrilling sections by turning relaxation into a refreshing bliss with pool butlers, who are available around the day to serve the guests tropical fresh juices, creative mock tails, and cool towels.

With an increase in per capita income and growing aspirations, people are eventually taking shine to beautiful homes and better living. Nowadays consumers prefer customized furniture and recliners are becoming their favourite pick. Any room filled with recliners automatically attracts eye-balls as they are a perfect amalgamation of class and comfort. As more and more people are looking for relaxation and a stress free living, they are turning to comfortable recliners as an easy solution for either home or office use. These beauties not only add splendor to your house, but also serve as a solution to all your mild body pains. Besides allowing you to put your feet up, recliners have many add-on health benefits such as improving blood circulation, relieving back pain and easing muscle stress.

Though you may feel like picking a recliner that spoils you completely lounging and size and space must be taken care of.

Lounging

While the chair slides back into a more comfortable position and makes you feel comfortable, it also relieves the weight and stress from the muscles in your legs.

Size and Shape

Moreover, with limited space in the newly constructed houses one must consider not only the space available in one’s living room, but also the size of the recliner that would fit one’s shape as well.

Longevity and Usage

Be sure that your investment is worth the cost of the recliner. Cross-check if the quality of fabric, leather, wood and metal from each recliner is crafted within the parameters of the chair or sofa.

Ergonomic Value

Sometimes getting up from a seated position is an extremely difficult thing to do, and when we look at the physical process of doing so anatomically, there is always a revelation.

Customize to Your Choice

There is an array of leather and fabric to pick from.

List of Must-Have Features

Recliners offer a varied range of features, so it is always better to shortlist the must have features before getting it home. New stress-less recliners offer added comfort features such as an articulating earnest, which cradles the head and neck in the reclining position.

Blending Style and Comfort

Ravinder Goel and Naveen Goel talk to AsiaOne about their brain child; Little NAP, the luxury furniture market in India and their target audience

How did you conceive the idea of Little NAP?

We felt a vacuum in recliner industry in India and that’s what attracted us the most. Drawing inspiration from Akio Morita Founder of Sony, we conceptualized a range of recliners that comfort you enough to induce sleep, thus finalizing the name as Little NAP.
Four years back we started with a small showroom of around 1000 sft and a small room for production of these marvel pieces, which has now grown up to 10,000 sft of retail touch point. We have production units combined of 22,000 sft, 350 dealers and online presence with all major furniture websites in the industry.
We have been awarded as one of the India’s best SME 2015 by the Skoch Group.

Can you tell us about your major clients?

Some of our prestigious clientele includes Cinegrand India Pvt. Ltd, Movietime Cinemas Pvt. Ltd, Suncity Cinemas, Fabfurnish.com, Pepperfry.com, Evok (Hindware), Aricent Software Company and Supertech Builders.

What are the waves of the luxury furniture market that Little NAP is currently working on?

We are trying to provide maximum comfort in lesser space. People these days appreciate colourful furniture at homes. We offer around 300 different colour options in each of our pieces.

We are focusing on shifting the luxury furniture market from being an unbranded industry to a branded one. Now with so much awareness and publicity, customers are looking to buy only branded furniture.

We are spoiling our consumers by giving them the best after sales services in the industry.

We focus on the personalized approach, where our executives visit consumers’ place and help them decide through 3D drawings for our recliners.

What is the range of target audience Little NAP caters to?

Our target audience is anyone who would like to sit for a movie marathon over the weekend, from all ages. It also varies from a celebrity who wants to rest in his/her vanity to an old-age man who wants to grab a Little NAP in the afternoon. Our consumer base is anyone above the age of 15 years and from all the walks of life.

How is Little NAP different from its competitors?

We strongly believe in selling a concept and not a product to our consumers. We purely act as consultants and not salesmen to our clients, which help us understand their needs properly and hence serve them better. We strive to build consumers’ trust in our brand followed by an aspiration to pick one of the recliners from our vast range. When the industry was pitching black and brown recliners to consumers all around the region, we came up with a wide colour palette of 300+ colours and that’s what we call innovation. It is an ongoing process at Little NAP and with the help of our research and development team we are able to be the trend-setter instead of a mere trend follower.

Will Little NAP foresee Tier-II and Tier-III cities in India as its prospect markets?

We are giving out Franchisee of the major brand Little NAP in Tier-II & Tier-III cities like Jaipur, Chandigarh, Ludhiana, etc. These showrooms will be operated through our major showrooms in the Metros like Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Chennai.

For Tier-II and Tier-III cities, we are also coming up with a low-budget brand under Little NAP, which will launch lowpriced recliners and sofa recliners. We are even trying to customize the massage chairs for these markets.

We hear that packaging is another big focus area.

To ensure the safety of our recliners while delivering through PAN India, we do four-layer packaging by using bubble packing, shrink wrap packing, carton paper packing and carton box packing with strapping.

We are also associated with a few logistic partners for safer delivery of recliners at consumer’s disposal as we provide door-to-door delivery and installation of recliners across India.

Where do you place your brand in the next five years?

Our ambition is to lead the recliner industry and to make Little NAP the first place to shop for a wide selection of medium-to-high-end quality recliners. We will remain dedicated to seeking out new, innovative ways to make it available for people from all genres of life. Our ambition is to have at least one recliner in every house.

It’s an established fact that it’s a big bad world you are living in and at almost every step you face, and would continue to face, obstacles. They may come from your enemies, or your friends or families or strangers, or even from inanimate objects or the circumstances, but they will be there. If you accept it, there is only one person who can overcome your difficulties, and that’s you. So, when you take charge and take 100% responsibility for choosing your reaction towards all that comes your way, you are bound to move towards success.

Continued happiness, exciting career options, nurturing family time, and blissful personal relationships wouldn’t exist by default, or someone or something from outside wouldn’t provide us these on a platter; “you” have to work towards them despite how this world is moving and what experiences you are gathering in the process.

Don’t Blame

Most of us blame someone or something else for our failures, irritations and hurts in life, while the truth is that all of us have a choice how we react in a particular situation or towards someone or something. Of course, when someone shouts at you for nothing, when there is an accident, when someone misunderstands you, or when it rains just before you are leaving for an important meeting, you are not responsible for the circumstances. But, and here’s the beauty of it, in all these cases you have a choice of reaction. You may blame and fret, and spoil what happens next, or you react in the best possible way under the circumstances and make the best of what happens next.

If “you” want to create a life as you dream it, then “you” have to take 100% responsibility for your life. You need to give up all your excuses, victim stories, reasons why you haven’t reached where you wanted to, and how circumstances held you back. You have to give them all up forever. You must understand that you have and always had the power to change things when they were happening or later, but because of something, be it your ignorance or fear, or your desire to be safe or right, you didn’t use that power. Nobody is concerned why you didn’t use that power, the fact is that you didn’t and because of that your past is the way it is. But, once again good thing about all of this is that the past is the way it is. It can’t be changed. Good! You have understood it. So accept it and let it be the way it is. Now, start working on your present and future!

Accept Your Past and Work Towards Your Future

If something didn’t happen in the past you must ask yourself how did you create it, or what were you thinking, or what were your beliefs, or what did you say or didn’t say, or what did you do or didn’t do, or what do you need to do to get different results the next time. Whatever happened, happened. But, if you want to change its effect or if you want to happen it in your desired way the next time, take responsibility for it and do it.

Is your work killing you? Or, do your wife and kids eat away your energy? Experts say you can simply smile through your stress and be healthy in the long-term. Minor stresses attack every person throughout the day; however, some people fail to maintain cheerfulness or calmness and live in a state of elevated levels of inflammation.

Inflammation means an immune-compromised state of a body part, i.e. it fails to protect itself via the immune system of the body. Long-term or chronic inflammation leads to life-threatening ailments such as obesity, heart disease and cancer.

Inflammation

According to Nancy Sin from the Pennsylvania State University in the US, a person’s frequency of stress is not as much related to inflammation as it is to his/her responses to stress. Thus, more than anything else what is important is how a person reacts to stress. In the short-term, when the body falls ill or when the person exercises, the body repairs itself to a high immune system. However, in the long-term, heightened inflammatory immune responses are adverse to health.

Those individuals who find it difficult to regulate their responses to stress, age early and have cardiovascular diseases, frailty or cognitive decline. The participants in the study reported daily stresses and emotional reactions for eight consecutive days. Later, participants’ blood samples were collected during a separate clinic visit and were tested for inflammatory markers. It was found that those participants who responded to stress in a positive way and chose to smile away the daily irritants and problems were healthier than those who let the stress affect their emotions and in turn their body.

Forced Smiles

Similar studies have been conducted by other researchers as well. Kraft and Pressman experimented with 169 volunteers, and trained and tested them. In the training stage, some were taught to hold fake smiles on their faces, while others were asked to smile naturally and a third set of people were asked to smile genuinely while feeling the smile.

It was found that holding a neutral, fake or forced smile would only exercise your muscles around your eyes and mouth. The genuine smiles with feeling made positive emotions flow through the participants’ entire body. During the research, the participants were given stressful tasks such as using their non-dominant hand to trace a path while looking in a mirror, or multi-tasking or plunging one’s hand into a bucket of ice water, while holding the smile on their face. Heart rates of participants were monitored during the experiment. The results showed that those participants who had genuine smiles on their faces recovered quickly from those stressful situations they were subjected to. Those who kept their faces neutral were the next to recover and in the end those who had forced smiles on their faces. Smiling through a traffic jam even for a limited time is more helpful than fretting about it or keeping yourself busy in something else. Of course, you may smile your way and smile the stress away!

We all want to have happy happenings in our life, and when something good happens we want to preserve that feeling or emotion for as long as possible to prolong our positive attitude for other things we do in life. We want to forget negative experiences and be positive in the hope that all our further decisions will be good if taken with a light, happy and positive mindset.

However, a recent new study has brought forward the “banker’s fallacy”, according to which we are naturally inclined to deliberately go for “happy endings” thus ascribing greater value to experiences than they are worth. It further means that we overvalue our last experiences in any situation with a final happy ending mental note in the hope that it will positively affect our next experience.

Decision Making

Now, our brain works like a logbook, where it keeps storing every new experience and keeps ranking them against the previous few for context. Thus, over a period of time we collect a mix of positive and negative emotions. This affects our decision-making power because last good experiences make us high-esteemed and we are more prone to take risks, and last few bad experiences make us low-esteemed and we tend to hold back.

The fallacy is named after bankers who are generally trained to close on a positive note. However, anyone who is doing it is actually thinking of the immediate next few results only. Thus, happy endings are actually trapping people into making lousy long-term decisions. People are focusing on immediate growth at the expense of longer-term stability, and our quick decisions may actually be strategically wrong affecting us adversely in the long run.

The Research Study

The study was conducted by Martin Vestergaard from the University of Cambridge, who found that most people in the test fell foul of the banker’s fallacy and made poor, short-term decisions as a result. The experiment involved participants trying to accumulate money by gambling between two sets of gold coins of varying sizes at high reaction times. The researchers found that the most immediate experiences carried much more weight in decision making than they should have, which means that a recent happy ending has a hugely disproportionate influence. The final result were thus false and delusional beliefs that in turn led to wrong decisions despite historical experience that could convince us of the contrary.

The results of the study are beneficial in all spheres of life including social, political and familial decision making as well. People in a relationship tend to make lighter decisions which may have long-term impact when they are happy with each other. However, the right decisions would be those which are taken considering the history of relationship. The same logic applies to political and social decisions too. However, the results of the study apply more to individual decisions rather than organisational or structural decisions, where a body of decision makers generally makes policy-based decisions. Though group decisions may also be affected by banker’s fallacy, the chances are less as several people are involved simultaneously and each one’s experience may differ on the last outcome.