1/02/2014

An airport is not a destination

The flood of criticism against the Jewel to be built at Changi Airport as a game change is drawing Changi Airport management out in defence of this financial concept. They are still thickly in support of this concept, that you need more thrills and frills to bring travellers to the airport.

Just a simple question, if 1000 travellers’s destination is Shanghai or New York, or KL or Jakarta, would they change their plans and come to Changi because of the Jewel?

An airport is to serve leisure and business travellers. As far as business travellers are concerned, if their business is in Timbuktu, no jewel there they will still be there. Business travellers have fixed itinenary and will not be distracted by frills and funny gardens and funny jewel or shopping malls. The only people attracted to shopping malls are bored Sinkies that have no where to go and dunno what to do with their time and money. This shopping mall stuff is a Sinkie mentality.

As for leisure or adventure travellers, they would think of Chinatown and Little India. Would they think of the Changi Jewel? International tourists who want top end shopping have Paris, New York, London and Tokyo to flock to. Would a jewel make them change their minds? They want to look at real western models in person rather than posters and billboards. That is something the Jewel would not be able to offer.

But I can guarantee you that the first month on opening the Jewel will be attract a massive crowd, with Sinkies queueing overnight just to get in, just like the JEM in Jurong East and the funny garden at the Bay. After the novelty is over, it would be serious moments to think of how to recover the cost and the operating cost. Who would be dragged in to subsidise the losses if it is not viable? Think the Garden at the Bay.

Personally I think the assumptions that the Jewel can become a destination are conceptually and financially flawed.

14 comments:

  1. Its a syndrom with all top management. They think they must out-do each others otherwise people may think they are just seat warmer. No need to know if these projects are viable in the long run. Its not their money any way.

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  2. Please lah, according to CapitaMalls Asia’s announcement regarding the project, Project Jewel will be targeting tourists, visitors to Changi Airport, as well as residents – numbering up to 1.5 million individuals – who live within a 20-minute drive from the vicinity of the area.

    They also mentioned residents what, tio bo?

    Maybe residents will be 99% of their target? Cannot meh?

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  3. "Maybe residents will be 99% of their target?"
    Anon 8:55 am

    Of course can, with 6.9 million population target.

    Sure have a lot of residents, especially rich ones, to target, tio bo?

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  4. For the very rich ones, The Jewel will be their one-stop for all their shopping. No need to go Paris and Milan just to shop.

    And for bored, ordinary Sinkies, for their window shopping.

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  5. "No need to go Paris and Milan just to shop."
    Anon 9:09 am

    Tiok. Whatever in shops there can also be made available here in the Jewel. Where got problem, you tell me lah?

    Not available are fresh mountain air, cool climate and ski resorts. So really need to go there if want it.

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  6. They earn from many places using cheaper foreign workers and get $500 per month levies, which is your pay, because foreign workers cheap you got to get lower pay, and now your life time CPF locked up schemes, you can't take back, so these are indirect taxes, and they don't do it directly because many might not like it, they got to give some excuses to mask it?

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  7. I rather pay $70k for cooking class in Paris than $200 for cooking class in Shatec.

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  8. Another Foreign Talent must have sold the Jewel idea to our gullible PAP Millionaires.
    I think all PAP Millionaires have a sign written on their foreheads.
    "Come fuck me. I'm loaded with Singaporeans' CPF money that I have no intention of returning. And I'm a stupid sucker for ideas from Foreign Talents."

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  9. These big dollar vanity projects remind one of the prodigal stone in the Summer Palace in Beijing.
    A rock fancier and imperial official Mi Wanzhong (米万钟) in trying to transport this stunning rock to his garden used up the entire family fortune, and had to abandon it by the roadside. Since then, people called this big rock the prodigal stone (“败家石”).

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  10. What is a few billion dollars?

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  11. Just wondering how much will be pocketed into lee empire funds in this project.

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  12. When you have the cash, there are so many ways to fritter it away. And it has been proven that the newly rich like to flash their cash, to show they've arrived.

    Meanwhile, how much of the $53million a year (the upkeep cost at this moment in time) of the Gardens by the Bay is the govt recovering from visitors?

    Doesn't it make more sense to keep your existing forests, which have many uses, rather than spending a billion plus to build a fancy garden which does not serve the same essential uses - like help the fight against climate change, provide a home for wild life - and then millions more to upkeep it?

    What is the point of having yet another mall, full of the same kinds of shops you can find in other malls? Why should residents keep patronising such a mall after the first flush of seeing something new?

    And why another mall Now, when there so many more urgent things that need to be built, like hospitals and MRT lines and homes? Isn't more than enough of this island a construction site?

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  13. What do you expect from a Sinkie? All he thinks about when going overseas is to visit shopping centre. And he thinks the rest of the world also think about shopping centres and they will all fly here to shop in the jewel.

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  14. can make this into a shrine?

    like the yasucunt shrine in japan?

    all daft singaponang cumming in n out of the country ... even the 40% have to pay homage to him

    knnccb ... 24/7 guard better than kanji

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