The title may sound like an oxymoron, I mean, how happy can you be when travelling, if you don’t own your own personal jet or eye-candy stewards to serve you freshly squeezed juice, and centre filled chocolates with a gentle shoulder rub thrown in for good measure?

But funnily and also thankfully enough, airports have realised that an unhappy traveller comes a close second, to a plane full of screaming babies, hence the recent shift towards travel friendly airports.

Since I am currently based in Singapore I shall talk about the airport that I am most familiar with. Changi Airport offers free wifi at all four of their terminals. Now travellers can surf the net, log on to their office network, if they are suddenly overcome with love for their jobs, or more realistically, check their personal email, update their blogs, Facebook account and register and update their ArrivedOK account. With over 400 free internet kiosks and 80 laptop Ethernet access points located throughout the terminal lounges and transit areas, Changi Airport offers everyone in the vicinity wireless broadband, keeping us happy and connected.

This shift towards being contact-able on the go is great news. There used to be a time when I would have to lug a whole bag of coins to call home while waiting the requisite three hours before boarding. On days that I forgot my bag of change, I used to stare at the worn out linoleum on the floor until my eyes crossed and vision blurred. Thankfully now there are much more constructive things for travellers to do with their time. Of course the luxury of free wifi and air-conditioning is still a foreign concept in some countries, so if you have any horror or happy airport experiences to share, please do, because I would love to have a list of airports I should avoid or at least come armed with an arsenal of entertainment, so as not to go crazy with boredom.

As the saying goes about too much of a good thing…., Its now come to a point, that airports have become such wonderful places to be at, that non travellers seem to prefer to while away their free-time napping or reading magazines while sipping coffee, making it no longer a place no longer exclusive to those of us toting boarding passes.

If this trend continues, one day genuine travellers will no longer have anywhere to hangout at during the three excruciatingly long hours until boarding, what with all the seats taken up by the non travelling riff-raff surfing the net on the mobile phones while sipping their cup of expresso!

Singaporean Adventure

by Kostya Fadeyev

Ivan Komarov:

One of our cool people had quite an adventure while traveling in Asia. We asked him to write about what happened to him. Here is his story… (Feed the fish before reading it.)

My 30-day Indonesian visa was about to expire and in order to stay in Indonesia for one more month I had to go to some other country and re-enter Indonesia, so that on the Indonesian border I would get another 30-day visa.

The question was what country to go to. I had consulted Vitaly and got the following picture: the closest country is Singapore but they do not give visas on the border and one cannot enter the country without visa, it seems like; may be it makes sense to go to Malaysia which can be freely entered. Then I consulted Hoki — he said it does not make sense to go to Malaysia — he goes to Singapore all the time and no visa is needed, he does not have a visa, and even if one does need a visa, it will be given there. He said: «Just show them your tickets back to Indonesia and say that you came to Singapore «to work on a business opportunity» – these words will work «like a charm». I got details about what to say and where, whether I will have problems for real — but he was very confident — so I boarded the plane to Singapore, feeling good.

My flight was at 5pm. The flight went as usual. On the plane I was anxiously waiting to get in a taxi, drive to this magic place – Sentosa, get some rest, explore the island, walk on the beach… Dusty Jakarta with its traffic jams and dirt started to get on my nerves.

In the Singaporean airport I filled out the immigration card, came to the immigration officer, showed my return ticket to Jakarta, and said the magic words «to work on a business opportunity»… to no desired effect! The officer replied that he cannot let me in Singapore and called his colleague. The colleague explained that in order to enter Singapore a person needs visa. The visa could be obtained in advance in Indonesia, and that they do not issue visas here, and all they can do is to send me back. I said that my real goal is to get a new Indonesian visa for 30 days, and I need Singapore only to leave and come back to Indonesia again. He replied that I should have received a visa beforehand, or entered some other country – not Singapore. Then he said politely: “Please come here, representatives of your airline will be coming shortly, you will need to speak to them,” and showed me to the door. Behind the door I found a chair in the middle of the room, and a camera in the corner. The massive door with a small window had closed, and I started to wait. Got in touch with Yura and Vitaly – told them that I am having problems on the border, that I can’t enter Singapore, and that they want to send me back to Indonesia. I called from an Indonesian number, so roaming charges quickly ate up my balance. Inserted the Singaporean SIM purchased beforehand but the phone broke down – took a really long (up to 15 minutes) time to turn on. I had the second phone, with an MTS SIM card, but may be some adventure spirit, may be something else made me turn it off and send it with the baggage. And problems come when you are not expecting them.

In one hour representatives of Singaporean Airlines showed up, and asked me to show the tickets that I have. Then another hour of waiting. My telephone got alive again, and Yura and Vitaly told me that they purchased for me tickets to Kuala Lumpur. If I only could talk to the customs officers, print out the tickets to Malaysia, and say that I am in transit, everything would be OK.

The door opened up and two persons ask me to follow them. We went but not in the direction of customs – in the opposite direction. I said that I have tickets to Kuala Lumpur, and one of them said: “It is not important now – tomorrow morning you are going to Jakarta, everything has been decided, and “they” won’t be listening anymore.” To my question about who are “they”, the answer was “immigration officers.” I started to think that these two were representatives of the airline and that I won’t be able to talk to the customs anymore. We boarded the train and went for about 5 minutes. When the train had arrived, one of my followers said good-bye and left. I started to ask the second guy – a gloomy man – some questions:
- Where are we going?
- To my place.
- Who are you?
- A policeman. By the way, if you want to make a phone call, do it now because later it will be forbidden.

At this time Yura calls, and I told him that I cannot go to Kuala Lumpur, that tomorrow morning I will be going back to Jakarta. Yura said that he would buy tickets to Kuala Lumpur from Indonesia for tomorrow’s afternoon flight. When we were about to finish the conversation, the policeman said: “Finish the conversation. Turn off the phone.”

On the way to the police station was a dirty narrow spiral stairs with traces of vomit here and there. Inside the station it was rather cozy and nice – there was even a TV set. All personal belongings (apart from clothing), including the phone, I was asked to put in a locker, to open which one needed two keys – one for me, the other for the policeman. I was given some paper to sign – it turned out to be a replacement for my passport (the passport was taken by the immigration service). Then I was given bed sheets and was escorted to my “apartment” – a big room full of bunk beds. Most of beds were occupied; the smell was bad and it was rather cold.

A black guy on the neighboring bed, dressed according to best traditions of American movies, had started a conversation. He told me that he is from Lebanon (although I didn’t quite get if he indeed was from Lebanon), that he was going through three countries to Singapore, and now he will be traveling through these three countries back home. When the black guy was done talking, I fell asleep, but didn’t sleep well – had been waking up all the time because of the cold.

At 6 am I was woken up and was told to get ready for a flight. In the corridor there was a table which featured hamburgers, one for each person. Hamburgers were rather disgusting but I didn’t pay much attention to this fact – I was that hungry. Moreover, if you chew slowly and follow it with a large amount of sweet tea (thanks to its unlimited supply), hamburgers seemed not that bad.

Some 30 minutes before departure I got my things back and was escorted to the gate. Me and the policeman, without standing in line (here comes the advantage of being illegal!), boarded the plane. The seat wasn’t that good – at the end of the plane – so one was the last to get food.

On exiting the airplane I was greeted by a smile of a representatives of Indonesian immigration service, and was escorted to the office. The room I came to, was strikingly different from the similar one in Singapore. There were many chairs (some of which were broken), the door didn’t close, and the ceiling was leaking. Indonesians in turn (from the lowest rank and all the way up to the head of immigration service) asked the same questions: why was I sent back, what am I doing in Indonesia, what am I going to do now. I frankly replied that I am in Indonesia «on a business trip», was sent back because I didn’t have tickets to Kuala Lumpur on hands, but I do have them, I just need to print them, I want to come to Indonesia for one more month, but if I can’t do so now, I have tickets to Kuala Lumpur which does not require visa. While I was questioned, airline representative ran and printed out my tickets to Malaysia (code for the the ticket and the flight number were sent in a SMS from Yura ) and registered me for the flight.

The head of the immigration service, having heard me, and having carefully thought about it all, decided that I am not a threat to their country, and wished me a pleasant trip, assigning me a personal guard who showed me a way to the gate. I was very hungry so I went straight to a cafe and ordered a lot of food though I didn’t have much appetite – nonetheless I finished everything ordered. The guard could not watch me eating so he went outside and sat there having me in his view. After lunch we went to the room for babies – no, we were not going to change diapers, and I think no one changed diapers in this room – the room was rather nasty. But it had a wall outlet which I used to charge my notebook before the flight, and I put some order to my documents.

In an hour I and the guard were at the gate where we were greeted by a smiling airline representative who escorted me to the waiting hall where he, at last, gave me my passport back!
- So now I’m a normal passenger? Like everybody else, right?
- Yes, Sir. Have a good trip.

In Malaysia I spend a week and a half instead of the planned 4 days – I was sick with bronchitis. Although I was emotionally cool during the adventure, stress from the flights, bad sleep, and bad food had its toll on me.

What lessons did I learn from the adventure?

• It is always better to have your tickets to all your destinations printed out.
• It is better to learn about visa terms from the original source (for instance from the web site of the immigration service of Singapore)
• It is better to have two working phones with enough money on them.
• It is easier to have ArrivedOK to notify people following you on your whereabouts.

Social media marketing becomes a hot topic in Travel industry.

“According to data available in the US, users are spending on average 30 minutes at social networking sites on a monthly basis” – EyeforTravel reports. And it is known that UGC can increase conversion to bookings.

But the situation is not the same for Asian people. They are not committed enough to such kind of communication:

“According to James Sundram, Head of Asia, Lonely Planet Publications, the presence of brands on sites such as YouTube, Second Life, Facebook etc is definitely worth the investment, but the Asians are generally not ready nor committed to use such community sites for their travel planning and arrangements”. Asians are still shy to participate.

So what is the way out?

LP, for example, suggests to overcome these limits by enhancing connectivity via mobile phone:

“These developments will benefit the Asian traveller much more because of the usage trends. Asians are not known to be avid readers but Asians love their mobile phones, and penetration in HK / Korea / Singapore / Philippines etc is more than one phone per person”.

Some interesting facts about female travelers in Asia from Singapore travel agencies.

Resume: Women travel to taste and enjoy their financial independence. They are more adventurous than men. They do it for themselves (men prefer to spend money for expensive “toys” to imress others then for jorney). They need shopping (read “spending money”) as therapy. They begin to travel more than men.

“In fact, with women in Asia making around 125 million trips a year – within Asia and elsewhere – they are set to play a decisive role in the development of the travel, hospitality and tourism sectors in the next decade,” says Mr Don Birch, CEO of travel facilitator Abacus International.

MasterCard study conducted in major Asian markets this year, revealed that 42 per cent of women surveyed travelled in the last 12 months, compared to 37 per cent of the men.

In Asia, the most active female travellers are from developed cities like Tokyo, Singapore, Shanghai and Hong Kong, where the women have more disposable income.

Read more on justwoman.asiaone.com

The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) has begun new campaign to “improve and edit all the information about Thailand”. The online campaign includes editing of articles about Thailand on Wikipedia and developing of web-portal with TAT’s and traveler’s UGC content about the country.

Good initiative.

TAT should also pay more attention to mobile media (in addition to this online campain), helping tourisits in a time of visit.

Now, for example, AIS mobile service for travelers doesn’t work. ConciergeGo, another source of information about major Asian cities on mobile, has no information about Thailand too.