Airports as amabassadors

As you may have read in our blog and Twitter posts, a delegation from The Uniter recently traveled Montreal to attend the Canadian University Press national conference.

This is not news, but our return to Winnipeg showed me an angle I hadn’t considered before - the welcoming aspect of an airport.

Far from just being a means of travel, airports are ambassadors to cities. It’s often the first exposure people get to the city, and therefore should reflect qualities of the city that make it look, you know… good.

Sadly, that effect is absent in Winnipeg’s James Richardson International Airport.

While descending the escalators after deplaning (one of my favourite words - if you can deplane, can you plane?), I was shocked/amused to see a three-story tall poster for the casinos of Winnipeg staring at me.

It was so ugly, I couldn’t believe it existed. Uglier than when Larry McIntosh started using a carrot as a microphone. The poster featured a mannequin-like woman screaming in frantic delight at, apparently, how good a time she is having at the casino.

Have you ever been to a casino in Winnipeg? Smiles are not what you see.

So what are tourists to think when confronted with this ghastly image?

That the best things in Winnipeg are the casinos? That we have absolutely no taste at all in advertising? (Think: Spirited Energy.) How about that we’re so desperate for money we’re willing to prominently display garish ads like that?

Maybe when the new terminal opens there will be a bit more taste to the décor. It won’t be hard to outdo the current terminal. Maybe the Queen’s footsteps will be highlighted on the ground so that Winnipeggers can make pilgrimages and retrace her steps.

Unfortunately I did not get a picture of the offending image as I was afraid the lens would crack. Go have breakfast at the Harvey’s there and see what I mean.