Nottsnortherner:
I wouldn,t be surprised if it still looked the same today! In many ways I was luckier than most, the venue for the conference I was there for was to take place in a recently built exhibition centre and our accomodation was a 5 star hotel next door. The scheduling for this event had been pre-arranged to allow plenty of time for potential hick-ups in transit e.g. customs etc as this was a first for Motorvation. As it turned out everything went smoothly and I arrived two days before expected which gave us an opportunity to have a look around. The first thing we were told by the hotel was don,t go to the bazaar on your own! We had an official guide and general “gofa” who was hired to look after us throughout our stay and he was really keen to show of the splendid exhibition centre which we were going to work in so on one day he gained access to show us round. The place had been built around 3 years before and one of the first major shows that took place soon after it was built was a FIAT car launch. The guide took us to the room where the Fiat launch took place 3 years earlier and that was where we saw proof that it was actually a FIAT launch because all the stage set,which was pretty comprehensive, was still in place!! We enquired as to why and the guide said that the set company didn,t need it and because there was no advance bookings for the room they just left it there, the room hadn,t been used in the 3 years since!..The bloody hotel was nice though! It was one of those flight crew overnight places and after breakfast we delighted in the sight of bikini clad air hostesses by the pool while noticing that they were also being watched by very sweaty rich Moroccans playing with their worry beads…at least I think thats what it was!!!
I remember our Suzie at Promotor, who had been an air hostess with BOAC years before, telling us that a lot of her colleagues would be on the look out for “very rich arabs” for husbands. Perhaps thats why they were in their bikini’s.