Taxis take a flying leap as the Marriott switches cab cos.
There were problems with Fly&Drive on many counts. They charged a lot for a ride in the swoopy Mercedes but, for business executives, that was far less an issue than the fact that the drivers often got lost.
"A lot of their people didn't know what was where," said Ismail. "That was a constant aggravation and we got lots of complaints."
The "919" folks "have been on the market a long time. When you talk about not having much time to get somewhere, you have to have someone who knows how to get around."
Ismail said there also weren't enough Fly&Drive cars at the hotel when customers needed them. "I needed 40 a day and they couldn't keep up with that." He said the company recently "tried to sell the Mercedes to the drivers but they said no, they don't want to buy."
The "919" company has 750 cars "and they're providing brand new vehicles for us. We're never going to be out of cars."
Right now, "919" appears to be charging regular one-way fares for Marriott pickups but that probably will revert back to the previous agreement where "919" taxis assigned full-time to the hotel would charge round-trip fares and not pick up customers on the way back to the hotel base.
* * * *
Look for fireworks next week from some of the pairings at the Atlantic CEO Institute's seventh annual emerging markets forum. The conference is provocatively titled: "After the Gold Rush: Consolidation and Reinvestment in Central Europe." One of the panels puts together Jan Monkiewicz, the Council of Ministers adviser to Finance Minister Grzegorz Kolodko, with ING Bank guru Stanislaw Szczurek and Christine Bogdanowicz-Bindert, who heads her own financial consulting firm out of Frankfurt. Monkiewicz is seen as the brains behind the bank consolidation plans of the past seven months - including the stealth move to bundle Bank Przemyslowo-Handlowy SA (BPH) of Krak-w into a holding-company structure headed by Bank Handlowy.
BPH already had been privatized, with ING and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development holding key minority stakes.
Bogdanowicz-Bindert is vice chair of the BPH board.
* * * *
The Solidarity shipyard workers in Gdansk are staking a lot on rank and file Poles rallying to their side, in the showdown with the government over the shipyard's bankruptcy. But judging by casual conversations with taxi drivers and "real folks" in Gdansk, Gdynia and Sopot, that might be a high-risk gamble.
A woman who had just left a professional job at Solidarity said she thought the shipyard workers had trouble moving from socialist thinking to market realities. Her associate in a construction firm said he thought they were "on the moon." And a taxi driver who had worked at the shipyard in the 1970s and opposed the current government said the bankruptcy "could be the revenge of the communists." But he was hard-headed about the options the government should pursue: "If it's going to go bankrupt, let it go. It won't be a disaster if one of so many yards goes under.
"The biggest tragedy is for the people. But much of the equipment there hasn't been updated since I was there in the 1970s," he said.
* * * *
Great news about the Bristol Hotel being named Egon Ronay's "best hotel in Eastern Europe" in its 1996 guidebook to Western and Eastern Europe. But, speaking of the Bristol, why of all times, during the big-business EuroForum conference did the hotel's Business Center staff take a day off?
"A lot of their people didn't know what was where," said Ismail. "That was a constant aggravation and we got lots of complaints."
The "919" folks "have been on the market a long time. When you talk about not having much time to get somewhere, you have to have someone who knows how to get around."
Ismail said there also weren't enough Fly&Drive cars at the hotel when customers needed them. "I needed 40 a day and they couldn't keep up with that." He said the company recently "tried to sell the Mercedes to the drivers but they said no, they don't want to buy."
The "919" company has 750 cars "and they're providing brand new vehicles for us. We're never going to be out of cars."
Right now, "919" appears to be charging regular one-way fares for Marriott pickups but that probably will revert back to the previous agreement where "919" taxis assigned full-time to the hotel would charge round-trip fares and not pick up customers on the way back to the hotel base.
* * * *
Look for fireworks next week from some of the pairings at the Atlantic CEO Institute's seventh annual emerging markets forum. The conference is provocatively titled: "After the Gold Rush: Consolidation and Reinvestment in Central Europe." One of the panels puts together Jan Monkiewicz, the Council of Ministers adviser to Finance Minister Grzegorz Kolodko, with ING Bank guru Stanislaw Szczurek and Christine Bogdanowicz-Bindert, who heads her own financial consulting firm out of Frankfurt. Monkiewicz is seen as the brains behind the bank consolidation plans of the past seven months - including the stealth move to bundle Bank Przemyslowo-Handlowy SA (BPH) of Krak-w into a holding-company structure headed by Bank Handlowy.
BPH already had been privatized, with ING and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development holding key minority stakes.
Bogdanowicz-Bindert is vice chair of the BPH board.
* * * *
The Solidarity shipyard workers in Gdansk are staking a lot on rank and file Poles rallying to their side, in the showdown with the government over the shipyard's bankruptcy. But judging by casual conversations with taxi drivers and "real folks" in Gdansk, Gdynia and Sopot, that might be a high-risk gamble.
A woman who had just left a professional job at Solidarity said she thought the shipyard workers had trouble moving from socialist thinking to market realities. Her associate in a construction firm said he thought they were "on the moon." And a taxi driver who had worked at the shipyard in the 1970s and opposed the current government said the bankruptcy "could be the revenge of the communists." But he was hard-headed about the options the government should pursue: "If it's going to go bankrupt, let it go. It won't be a disaster if one of so many yards goes under.
"The biggest tragedy is for the people. But much of the equipment there hasn't been updated since I was there in the 1970s," he said.
* * * *
Great news about the Bristol Hotel being named Egon Ronay's "best hotel in Eastern Europe" in its 1996 guidebook to Western and Eastern Europe. But, speaking of the Bristol, why of all times, during the big-business EuroForum conference did the hotel's Business Center staff take a day off?
