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Indo American News • Friday, May 6, 2011
The TRAVELing Desi
online edition: www.indoamerican-news.com
Fourth Largest City has an Air of Provinciality for the Foreign Traveler
By Jawahar Malhotra HOUSTON: It had been a long flight from Dubai, over 15 hours long, straight to George H. Bush InterContinnental Airport and even more when you added in the 4 hour hop from New Delhi to Dubai and the 3 hour layover at the airport. With my elderly mother in a wheelchair and handbags in tow, I searched in vain for a pushcart to go the endless distance to the immigration counter. We were
oasis for the traveler to rest his body and nurture his spirit with comfort, refreshment and amusement. Most good architectural design firms have realized this many years ago and embrace the concept in their fanciful designs. Foremost, they realize that the airport is the foreign traveler’s window to the culture of the city and the country they have entered: a huge ad campaign to display the jewels of their land. The impression that the air traveler,
The Dubai Airport Departure Terminal offers an appealing architectural design
shown through a glassed off, unappealing narrow corridor like some cattle being directed to the pen; crossed over a stark, grey, carpeted passage devoid of any color or welcome signs; strode over a skybridge with a view of cars passing by below; past an empty hall with queue dividers and turned into another similar hall for the immigration process. No music, no cultural experience, no warmth exuded from this penitentiary like, but functional experience. Down the escalator to a yawning baggage claim where the carrousel, the two busy ones out of ten. had been turned off to save energy, the rustic (and rusting) baggage carts were from a bygone, Third-World era and the customs lines did not offer Green or Red aisles, just again a functional, procedural, slow security driven flow. The most basic things that international air travelers look for at airports are creature comforts. After all, these are people who have spent thousands on the airline ticket alone, and then even more in gifts and souvenirs for themselves and others in their final destinations. And airports offer the haven, the
Svarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok, where Thai culture and a shopping extravaganza mixes with delicious varieties of cuisine and smiling sales people. Or Hong Kong International Airport with its tubelike terminals opening to vistas of the island, shops, restaurants and free internet services. Or the new Dubai International Airport with its gleaming chrome encased columns, high ceilings, polished granite floors, triple wide elevators and interior gardens and waterfalls. Or take Beijing International Airport built in time for the 2008 Olympics and very opulent if less of a shoppers dream. Or Shanghai International Airport which outclasses all the others worldwide with its Mag-Lev superfast train connection to the city. Much older, but still mindful to make the traveller’s journey comfortable yet profitable for the airport are the Singapore’s Changi Airport, Schipol International Airport inAmsterdam, Paris’Charles De’Gaulle Airport, Heathrow Airport in London and Narita Airport in Tokyo. These airports even have Duty Free shopping on
the way to the immigration and customs counters! And the list can go on. Even airports from emerging countries have gone several steps in this direction, like Ho Chi Minh City’s clean airport in Vietnam. Or New Delhi’s Terminal 3 at Indira Gandhi International Airport with clusters for television watchers, playful lighting and a huge pod for shoppers and diners, even if the prices are comparable to European scales. Critics may scoff at the costs and bemoan that these airports are new and have thrown public money wastefully, money that cannot be recovered over time. But then, they have missed the opportunity to capture millions in sales taxes and concessions from the vendors and the turnover of cash from the travelers. Furthermore, they have wasted a chance to paint a picture of the city, and of Texas, for the world to see and reflect upon. Instead, we are given portraits of Houston politicians, from Mayor, City Council, Congressmen and Senators to gaze at, and art projects from area school children to admire. And, to add insult to injury, for an
even the most casual transit one, will leave with will stay forever and this is the message that the traveler will spread wherever they go. The next thing that designers understand is that air travelers are a captive audience who will while away the time browsing, shopping, eating, often at inflated prices, lured in by Duty Free Shops, once they are in the cocoon of secure lounges and to induce them to part with their dollar requires the right environment with clever and catchy marketing. In the words of Marshall McLuhan, a demigod of the marketing world, the media is the massage. These lessons are well applied in airports, some old, some new, around the world and the results have been a satisfied traveler whose senses have been satiated The Dubai airport welcomes the weary travelers offering them all the enough to leave behind creature comforts they can imagine. Anything and all things their hearts not only his weariness but desire from relaxing music, comfortable lounge seats, duty free shops to also a substantial chunk a varied line of cuisine experiences. Arriving in airports like Dubai, Beijing of money at the shops International, Schipol in Amsterdam, Charles De’ Gaulle in France, Ho Chi and restaurants. Take for Minh in Vietnam leaves a strong and vibrant impression upon the traveler’s example, the enormous mind that they will share with others
INDO AMERICAN NEWS • FRIDAY, MAY 6, 2011 • ONLINE EDITION: WWW.INDOAMERICAN-NEWS.COM
airport that has been growing for the past three decades, there is still a lack of a rail link to downtown, some 30 miles away. By comparision, there are rail links from most major airports around the world, like in the ones mentioned earlier, to key destinations within the city. But most bitingly, is the remarkable improvement in this regard that the city of New Delhi has made in the last year, where an Airport Express links the airport with five stations, including New Delhi Railway Station, via an underground and elevated rail line, making the distance in 21 minutes at a cost of Rs. 100 ($2.25) for the whole length. The carriages supplied by a Spanish firm are clean, futuristic and air conditioned as are the huge stations, manned with smiling personnel and tidily dressed, polite porters who offer pushcart services for Rs. 50 ($1.25) for three bags. It is a case where a Third World country has out bested the Fourth Largest city in the US, the Energy Capital of the World, but not the only such case. In a slap to the other side of the face, five years ago, New Delhi went on an ambitious but aggressive drive to build a Metro system in time for the 2009 Commonwealth Games and overcame the skepticism that many had of corruption, workmanship and delays to build an entire 200km (125 miles) long mostly elevated network that encompasses the entire city, and does not interfere with traffic on the surface roadways. Wherever the stations are set, tiny shops have mushroomed and rickshaws and feeder buses take commuters around the area, giving work to many, and offering revenues back to the city. To replicate these efforts, the Bayou City’s airports require is a long-term vision to help the city and also become a creator of jobs and dreams for business for others. It is unfortunate that the city leaders have accquiesed to narrowly driven plans when such projects were more affordable. Now, with the passage of time, not only are costs higher and some may say out of reach, but the notion of overcoming provinciality, of using the much ballyhooed cultural diversity to our advantage, of becoming a World Class city is burnished like some oil and tar washed up on Gulf coast sands.