SINGAPORE. The Moodie Davitt Report is pleased to announce SwanSong Smiles, a charity dinner to be held on 8 May 2027, the eve of TFWA Asia Pacific Exhibition & Conference (9-13 May).
The event – The Moodie Davitt Report’s fifth international charity dinner – will raise funds and visibility for international cleft charity Smile Train.
The company’s previous four such dinners (two of them, in 2007 and 2023, respectively, for Smile Train) collectively raised over US$1 million for the nominated causes.
Writing in The Moodie Blog, The Moodie Davitt Report Founder & Chairman Martin Moodie said, “SwanSong Smiles will simultaneously celebrate several landmarks – the 20th anniversary of our (and travel retail’s) relationship with Smile Train; The Moodie Davitt Report’s 25th anniversary; my 40th year in the channel; and the duty-free industry’s 80th anniversary.
“What a joyous, joint celebration it promises to be. I plan the night to be big, bold, brilliant and – most of all – a blockbuster fundraiser for Smile Train, our brothers and sisters in arms all these years. Please pencil in the date now.”
In his latest Blog post, Moodie explains how since the first Smile Train charity dinner in Hong Kong in October 2007, which introduced the US-based international, nonprofit, non-governmental organisation (NGO) to travel retail, more than US$3 million has been raised (enough for at least 12,000 cleft surgeries), along with priceless visibility.
The Moodie Davitt Report is working closely with relevant parties in Singapore to ensure the event is a smash hit. Within one day of announcing the event, five tables have been reserved, Moodie revealed. Over coming months full details, including news of a highly prestigious venue, will be revealed.
We will be seeking unique prizes for silent and live auction. In a considerable fillip for the evening, dynamic Irish duo Global Travel Retail Sales Founder David Spillane and Duty Free Global Founder Barry Geoghegan, who between them have served as auctioneers for all previous Moodie Davitt Report charity dinners, have volunteered to share the role at SwanSong Smiles.
If you would like to support SwanSong Smiles please reach out to Martin Moodie at Martin@MoodieDavittReport.com ✈
PICTURE GALLERY OF PREVIOUS SMILE TRAIN DINNERS
2007
Our first dinner, themed ‘Turning Tears into Smiles’, was co-organised by The Moodie Report (as it was then called) with German fashion house Hugo Boss (thanks to the wholehearted support of then-Head of Travel Retail Nadine Heubel).
Astoundingly, the dinner raised almost US$350,000, an amount that would soar over ensuing travel retail-led Smile Train events, some of which I feature below.
No-one who attended the evening will ever forget it, especially the brave and moving speech from Chinese teenager Wang Li, The Smile Train’s first patient in China, who told a spellbound audience how her life had been transformed by the operation she had received seven years earlier.
Wang Li was born with a cleft lip and palate in Jiangsu Province. Her parents’ combined earnings, equivalent to US$25 a month, were barely enough to put food on the table, let alone to pay for cleft surgery.
As she grew older, Wang Li became increasingly introverted. After years of ridicule at school, she stopped attending and stayed confined to her home. Then Smile Train came into her life.
2023
The Moodie Davitt ‘Smile Raising’ Charity Dinner in Singapore on 6 May raised over US$200,000 in funds and pledges for Smile Train.
