Saturday, January 3, 2009

holiday travel




as we all know, there's nothing like holiday travel in america. as i sat waiting in an airport on the initial snowy leg of my journey, i watched person after person walk by dragging bags on wheels for hours. and none of the women looked like the covers and the pictures in the majority of the magazines they were buying. no surprise there. but in retrospect, it's interesting that dove got so much attention for their campaign on natural beauty. rather, that kind of campaign might be the norm rather than the exception.
and ya gotta love the large door mat size red carpet by the gates. the red carpet line opens briefly for first class and premier, and then closes to the rest of the passengers who walk in next to the red carpet on the regular carpet. if the economy gets any worse, will it be embarrassing to take the 1 1/2 steps on the red carpet? it probably should be, if it isn't already embarrassing for the airlines.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Yeah, I completely agree. With the economy in shambles and companies scrambling to look for new ways in which to add value to their goods or services, such practices as the 'red carpet' example are prone to criticism. I just went to NY this last week and noticed the lack of first-class passengers taking advantage of early entry, one of the perks of flying first class. While early entry is supposed to be a differentiated benefit, all it really is in nature is symbolic with little added value to a customer experience. People that enter early (at least in the aisle seats) have to deal with everyone else passing by, crawling over them, and bumping into them; doesn't sound like a good deal to me.

Especially for the airlines industry, it might be time to re-evaluate some 'traditional' practices and consider new, more cost effective and value-added service features for those other than first class.