We stumbled across a very eye-catching tourism advertising campaign today on our way back from this glorious view of the Brooklyn Bridge, and thought we'd share. It's underground in the Union Square subway station, and it's all over. The ads, a before/after study in what can happen to you when you leave the rough city life for the beaches of St. Petersburg and Clearwater, depict rough-and-tumble characters turning into attractive, exotic people once they've flown the 2.5 hours south to Florida.
Check out all of the images, after the jump]]>
It used to be that airlines were in charge of attracting passengers while airports just quietly went about their business. In the last few years, though, industry dynamics have changed and airport facilities are now front and center. Cities have been left to to sell themselves to potential flyers, with the result being what USA Today is sensationally calling "The Airport Wars." These involve campaigns and travel ads that promote home airports, highlight their amenities, and even sometimes explicitly trash rival airports.
Before we get to some examples, a bit of context. There are positive and negative changes driving these efforts. On the good side, you've got a combination of LCCs, online travel agencies, and technological savviness empowering passengers. Flyers can and do mix and match their own connections. On the downside, you've got airlines decreasing their amenities, forcing airports to step up. The results have included everything from SFO's cheerful "I Wanna Go Through SFO" campaign (see the video after the jump), to Edmonton International's gloves-off attack ads on rival airport Calgary:"When you go south, so does your air service." That's just mean.]]>
It's 70 degrees in New York City today, and before the flurries come again this weekend and next week, we hopped out with our WiFi card to work under the sun in Brooklyn Bridge Park. Sitting nearby the water taxi dock and the River Cafe, noshing on some chocolate-covered Peeps from the Jacques Torres chocolaterie down the street, we watched as busloads of international tourists emerged from their winter hibernation and explored Brooklyn—well, the yuppie neighborhood known as "DUMBO," or "Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass."
It's like the birds returning from their migrations in the spring, when the tourists show up in their sunglasses. It's even more telling when said busloads are Italian, and they're looking up into the sun and sighing happily.
Next time you're in New York, you should make your own pilgrimage down to the Fulton Ferry Landing in Brooklyn's DUMBO neighborhood (if you haven't already), and savor the city in the spring and summer, especially now that they're readying to open a new section of the park. Perhaps you'll even catch one of the free outdoor films they show in the park, and then you'll really thank us.
Related Stories:
· Dining in Downtown Brooklyn: It's Always 1977 at Junior's [Jaunted]
· Travel Snapshots [Jaunted]
[Photo: Jaunted] ]]>
Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler are getting cozy on the big screen in The Bounty Hunter, which opens nationwide today. Gerry and Jen filmed the movie in and around New York City last summer but instead using the typical midtown Manhattan locales, much of the movie was shot outside of the city, in Brooklyn or in the Bronx.
In the film, Gerard plays a bounty hunter hired to bring in his ex-wife, a reporter played by Jennifer Aniston. The action-packed chase scenes are the ones that drew Aniston the script. "It has a fun road-chase aspect. It's a fun action/comedy. It's not a traditional romantic comedy," she recently explained. ]]>
Hey, President Obama—when you've just finished watching the House vote on the controversial Health Care bill, where are you going to go? It's not the Super Bowl, so you're not going to DisneyWorld, but we hear that you would have been taking off on Sunday before the vote for a lovely little tour around Indonesia, Australia and Guam, but that it's now postponed until June.
We like to imagine that that's how it'd be if we were President. Every time we overcome a hurdle, whether or not it comes out in our favor, we'd head somewhere tropical (maybe or maybe not Guam), and lift morale while getting our international diplomacy action on.
Obama postponed his Asia trip twice already to see the health care vote through, and just this morning he postponed it again until June, ruling against dashing off this weekend in Air Force One as he in favor of taking his time with both the health care bill and his trip. It's too bad he has to wait to go; we understand the cabin fever of winter, and the Washington Post talked to Mike McCurry, a Clinton-period spokesman to remind us of an important fact, however: ]]>
If you see people breaking into dance at the Terminal 2 baggage claim at San Diego International Airport, it's because they are overjoyed at getting their luggage back. The baggage-claim boogieing is part of the airport's à Breve arts program.
The airport's been doing arts programming since 2003, but dance shows appeared only sporadically until around 2006. Now there's a dance performance by a local company once a quarter. On Tuesday, modern dance troupe Eveoke Dance Theatre took over the space, the first time the group performed in an airport.]]>
