David J.
Danto
Business travel
thoughts in my own, personal opinion
eMail: ddanto@IMCCA.org Follow Industry News: @NJDavidD
A Holiday Fantasy
Fantasyland is a great
place to live and work all year round, but when one gets to the end of the year
all the stops are pulled out. Here in Fantasyland,
the holidays are a special time for business travelers. We’ve spent a large part of the year on the
road, and the transportation and hospitality firms we’ve used all year are so
appreciative of our business that they go out of their way to make us feel
welcome and appreciated on the road at the end of the year.
The airlines go over the top with their holiday service. Senior executives man the TSA security lines
at the airports, personally greeting us and thanking us for our business. Special, all-first-class aircraft are
rolled-out so that everyone’s upgrades will always clear. Standby aircraft and crews are readied to
handle the overflow if anyone gets misconnected or delayed. Extra crewmembers are added to each flight so
that the onboard experience will be extra special.
The hotel chains go over the top as well. They roll-back prices for the entire month. Every room is stocked with a mini-fridge full
of complimentary snacks and drinks. All
requests for room upgrades are honored at no additional cost. The bed-pillows are all new
and firm.
As far as entertainment on the road is concerned, year-round in
Fantasyland, all airline seats have high-definition video screens with first
run movies – all for free. All hotels
offer first run, on-demand movies for their valued guests as a way of making them
know how appreciated they are, and to help them feel less sad about being away
from their families. In the odd case
that business travelers can’t find a movie they want to see in the air or in
the hotel room, there are still many options.
Fantasyland’s largest entertainment firm for streaming movies and DVD
rentals – FlixNet – loves to make it easy for their
customers to get copies of the latest movies and take them on the road. All one has to do is order DVDs by mail, make
a courtesy copy for personal use once they arrive, and return the disk once
done. FlixNet
never gets upset about this personal time-shifting in Fantasyland. They understand that people just want to
watch the content they’ve rented and paid for when it is more convenient for
them. The firms that make software which allows this easy
copying are stalwarts of the retail community and have moved off-shore only
because they prefer the views from their overseas offices. Business travelers in Fantasyland walk around
with a large flash drive of the latest
movies they’ve copied and used other
software to convert to MP4s, and in the unlikely event that they can’t find
anything of interest from the many hotel and airline choices offered, they can
just pop this drive into an iPad or Surface and watch the perfectly legally
time-shifted content wherever they happen to be. Of course they carry their preferred Active
Noise Cancelling headphones to ensure the sound is as good as the video, even
though it never comes close to the super high quality offered by the airlines for
their content.
In Fantasyland however, most business travelers never get around to
watching their time-shifted content in-flight.
They’re usually either watching the free, HD, first-run movies,
spreading out their PCs and documents on their spacious seatback desk to
complete a work assignment, stretching out and
grabbing a nap in the luxurious, super-comfortable seats, or chatting with a
super-friendly crewmember that is genuinely interested in making the in-flight
experience the best it can be.
What’s that you say? You don’t live in Fantasyland. I’m sorry to hear. Try to have a happy holiday season anyway.
This article was written by David Danto and contains solely his own, personal
opinions.
All image and links provided above as reference under
prevailing fair use statutes.