In reference to Ulla Bunz's query about internet cafes in airports, on my way home from Minneapolis, I found internet cafes both in Tokyo's Narita airport as well as Singapore's airport. I am not sure about other Asian cities, but there are at least two airports with internet cafes. Singapore's Changi airport also has wireless ports available in the airport for use by travellers. Randy Kluver Information and Communication Management FASS 3, #04-16 National University of Singapore Singapore, 117570 (65) 874-8755, fax (65) 779-4911 -- Message: 10 From: "Bunz, Ulla K" <ulla@ukans.edu> To: "'air-l@aoir.org' '" <air-l@aoir.org> Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2001 19:42:05 -0500 Subject: [Air-l] internet cafes Reply-To: air-l@aoir.org In the last three months, I've traveled a bit. I've been at the following airports: Kansas City, Minneapolis, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Seattle, Newark, Frankfurt (Germany), Cologne (Germany), Amsterdam (Netherlands), and Stavanger (Norway). I'm also familiar with airports in major cities such as Munich, Brussels, London, Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, Sydney, and Auckland. And yet, at all these airports, one thing is missing. How come I can't remember seeing any Internet Cafes in any of these airports? Traveling across the globe I have become quite proficient at computer-spotting. And sure, there are ads one one dot something or other plastered all over the place. But what if I should feel the urgent desire to act upon one of these ads (don't they wish)?! Has no one thought about this before? Is this an unexplored business niche that some Jeff Bezos has to act upon? Are there laws restricting web use in airports? Doesn't anyone else care? Or am I just blind? Certainly I can't be the only person who'd like to check their email on a two or three hour lay-over? I'm wondering: Can anyone think of an airport that HAS an Internet cafe? If so, do you know who runs it? If not, does anyone know why this lack exists? I've always wanted to do an ethnography on relationship formation and maintenance among long-term backpackers (there's five main types of people, and two main types of relationships, which are maintained mainly through email). Maybe we need a study on information acquisition of frequent flyers/travelers? There's all this time to spend while waiting, and yet, we arrive at our destination trying to catch up. In this time and age, there's something wrong with that, don't you think? ulla the vagabond