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As a New Yorker,
any opportunity afforded to more deeply explore historic areas of the
city should be immediately exploited—too often, native New Yorkers
suffer the dreaded malaise of Head Down Syndrome, missing the once-spectacular,
now-mundane sights of one of the greatest cities in the world.
I decided to take in Japan Week, which celebrated
its 4th year in New York City at Grand Central Terminal from earlier this
year. Set in the small Vanderbilt Hall just off the Main Concourse, Japan
Week was a small marketplace of foods, goods, and services sponsored by
both local and international Japanese businesses. While my eyes bulged
at the sweet, golden cream puff pastries from Bear Papa’s, a bakery
that originated in Osaka, Japan, but which now has locations worldwide
(and whose Japan Week queue doubled around like the coiled colon to which
the pastries would serve their final destination), and my brain marveled
at the new Shinkansen high-speed rail model from Japan’s largest
railway, JR-EAST, a particularly busy and populous booth immediately caught
my eye.
 There
were several exhibitors and sponsors at Japan Week, but Delta Air Lines
had a lively milling of the young and the old, and centered specifically
on a set up of i-Pads and flat-screen TVs that served as leaderboards
for a game called Sky Search. We spoke with Gregory P. Fisher, Specialist,
Global Meetings & Events, to learn about Delta’s presence at
Japan Week.
“Japan Week has been an event for
four years; it’s held with the Japan Tourism Agency and we’re
the official airline. This is the 3rd year we have participated.
“The Japanese travel market is very
influential, and we have a lot of competition with JAL and ANA. We’re
not where we’d like to be in New York City, and we don’t think
we’re currently making ourselves fully available to the Japanese
community.
“So we’re here supporting the
community and letting them know that Delta has a vested interest in their
business travel, and not only their leisure travel.
“We have a large Japan selling group
here in New York City—we really wanted to support the Japanese business
community, because it is a lot of import/export, technology, travel, fashion,
and they are very appreciative that Delta Air Lines has a vested interest
in their needs,” said Mr. Fisher.
Noticing the 180-degree reclining flat-bed
seat available for testing, we grabbed the opportunity to lie back and
experience what it would be like to travel on Delta. Business travelers
to Japan will appreciate the ability to fully recline inside a personal,
private Delta ‘pod,’ enjoying food from James Beard Award-winning
chefs and wine pairings from master sommeliers.
“Almost everybody, if they’re
traveling 9, 10, 12 hours, appreciates the full recline of our seats.
It’s really designed for the business traveler. We do a lot of corporate
travel, which will be married with a Sky Club package, so they sleep on
the way over, get up, have breakfast, get off the plane, go to a Sky Club,
shower, go to a meeting, and then come right back.
“That’s called severe business
travel. Many of the people that fly like this are ‘million milers.’
They’re actually better friends with the flight attendants than
they are with their own family. They see them every day, on long flights—JFK
to Asia is thirteen hours. So it’s like your family; you see them
every day.”
Of course, as a child of the 80s and the
generation of Atari, Nintendo, and Super Genesis, I couldn’t help
but wander to the i-Pad stands, where children of all ages were furiously
finger-punching the screens to catch wayward symbols streaking across
a cloudy blue sky.
“That is an interactive game called
Sky Search. We developed the game as an engagement piece for anyone coming
to an event like this.
“We have three different prizes that
we give away each day: a leather Delta bag, a messenger bag, and a backpack,
all filled with Delta swag.
“At the end, we give away our grand
prize. Whoever is the highest scorer will win a trip to Japan, JFK to
Tokyo, with a 3-night stay at the Hyatt Regency in Tokyo.
“The game is set up with our 21 Sky
Team partners. Players have to tap on all the readable icons—Delta
Vacations, Sky Priority, Aeroflot, Air France, KLM, Alitalia, etc.
“There are icons that deduct your
time—like a fork, a spoon, or a cigarette smoking sign—but
they all fly across the clouds, so you tap on the right ones and get extra
points,” said Mr. Fisher. Looking at the leaderboards, I noticed
the top scorers pushing over 35,000 points, and my eyes focused in on
a young man shifting his feet and watching the leaderboards anxiously.
“That gentleman right there was here
for five hours yesterday,” Mr. Fisher said. “He won third
place yesterday and has been here since we opened today. He’s currently
number three—his name is Bronstein.”
Noticing that Bronstein’s name was
duplicated several times over on the leaderboard, occupying several spots
in the top 20, we refrained from joining in on the screen-tapping fun.
Better to take in a saké tasting than ruin poor Bronstein’s
chances at a trip to Japan. If you close your eyes and have a crispy Bear
Papa pastry close at hand, it’s almost as good as the real thing.
http://japanweek.us/
Flossie Arend
FlyingTypers Managing Editor Flossie
Arend (left) and Special Events Editor Emily Arend (right) pose with
the iconic Japanese character Domo-Kun. |
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