Latest news with #Bazin
Toronto Star
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Toronto Star
TIFF's 50-film anniversary series kicks off with ‘The Princess Bride,' while adding many surprises
The influential French critic André Bazin once posited that for a certain kind of moviegoer, film festivals represented a form of sanctuary: a sacred space, separated out from regular society and predicated on devotion and defined by ritual and routine. 'Fully fledged participation,' he wrote, 'is like provisionally being admitted to convent life.' He wrote 'The Festival Viewed as a Religious Order' in 1955, from the sunny climes of Cannes, which was then celebrating its tenth anniversary. Two decades later, in 1976, the Toronto International Film Festival launched its inaugural edition, attracting 35,000 attendees. In lieu of a cloistered, monastic order, the festival's founders cultivated their start-up as party central; contra Bazin's pious allegory, most of TIFF's downtown revelers would more likely be seen at last call than morning Mass.
Skift
22-05-2025
- Business
- Skift
Qatar Wants Tourists Who Stay Longer
Qatar's tourism numbers grew by around 25% last year, but the real focus is on increasing how long people stay and how much they spend. Qatar's new goal for tourism isn't to have the most travelers in the region – it wants travelers who stay longer and spend more, according to the chairman of Qatar Tourism, Saad Bin Ali Al Kharji. "I'm not looking to drive the [visitor] numbers high, rather [to increase] people staying longer and increase the quality of visitors," said Al Kharji at the Qatar Economic Forum in Doha on Wednesday. Qatar had 9.95 million room nights last year, according to Qatar Tourism data, referring to the total number of rooms occupied. The country had around five million total tourists. "Everyone globally wants to increase their number of visitors. We are focused more on room nights, though," said Al Kharji. "That's the most important [metric] for Qatar." Al Kharji said Qatar's room nights grew 22% last year. Accor CEO and chairman Sebastien Bazin was also on stage with Al Kharji. Accor is a major operator in Qatar and a member of the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) sits on Accor's board. Bazin agreed that increasing the length of stay is key. "It costs a fortune to get people to Doha, so we need them to stay an extra two nights," he said. Bazin added that, even though Qatar gained visibility when it hosted the FIFA World Cup in 2022, more needs to be done to create awareness. On the topic of extending vacations, Bazin said that one of Qatar's shortcomings is that it doesn't have enough beach resorts. "The difficulty of this country, and it's one, and it's being addressed, it doesn't have enough luxury beach resort experiences," Bazin said. "They built it in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, they're doing it in Saudi Arabia, but Qatar is late. Most of the hotels [in Qatar] today don't have great beach access." "That's what is missing in this country. We need to go quick at it. We need to catch up." Responding to Bazin's point, Al Kharji said Qatar has stopped issuing new hotel licenses, unless they are beach projects. "We stopped licensing new hotels in Qatar, the only hotels I'll give licenses to are those on the beachfront," said the tourism chief. Qatar has around 40,000 hotel keys and 7,000 in the pipeline, Al Kharji said.
South China Morning Post
02-04-2025
- Business
- South China Morning Post
European travellers shun US as ‘unknown territory' as tourist detentions create ‘bad buzz'
French hotel group Accor has warned that forward bookings from Europe to the United States are down 25 per cent this summer as travellers who feel put off by US President Donald Trump's crackdown on immigration divert to other locations. Advertisement The company is seeing a 'pretty strong deceleration' across the Atlantic, chief executive officer Sébastien Bazin said. The drop is an acceleration from an 18-20 per cent decline in the first 90 days of the year, he said. Travellers are deciding to visit places such as Canada, South America and Egypt instead of the US, Bazin said. 'It's probably anxiety to go in an unknown territory,' Bazin said. While cases of people being detained at the border are anecdotal for now, they have nevertheless created a 'bad buzz' that has started to show up in booking trends, he said. 'You don't need any bad buzz today,' Bazin said. Sebastien Bazin, CEO of the French hospitality group Accor, says European travellers are deciding to visit places such as Canada, South America and Egypt this summer instead of the US. Photo: AFP Transatlantic travel has long been a mainstay of airlines and tourism companies, counting as one of the most lucrative routes anywhere in the world.
Asharq Al-Awsat
14-03-2025
- General
- Asharq Al-Awsat
A Libyan Town Comes Together to Make a Beloved Ramadan Dish
Every year during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, a Libyan town comes together to prepare — and share — one of their all-time favorite dishes: bazin. In Tajoura, just east of Libya's capital of Tripoli, it's the perfect food for iftar, the evening meal when Muslims break the dawn-to-dusk fasting of Ramadan. Savory and rich, bazin is usually made of unleavened barley flour and served with a rich stew full of vegetables and — hopefully — mutton. If those aren't available, which they often haven't been in the past decade and a half due to Libya's violence and turmoil, a simple tomato sauce will do. Volunteers prepare Bazin, traditional Libyan dough bread made of barley or whole wheat flour and often served with stew in Tajoura, east of Libya's capital Tripoli, Tuesday, March 11, 2025, during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. (AP) Preparing it is a joint effort, and Tajoura residents of all ages are eager to help with roles from making the bread, handing it out to the poor or donating ingredients to the community. Typically, the men of Tajoura volunteer to make the bread in a makeshift communal kitchen, using long wooden sticks to stir the barley flour water in large pots to make the dough. Others then knead the dough, shaping it into large clumps that look a bit like giant dumplings, to be baked or steamed. Once ready, other volunteers hand out bazin to a people lined up outside, who eagerly wait to take it home for iftar. Ramadan is a time of intense prayers, charity and spirituality. And in Tajoura, it's also time for bazin.
