So in my last post I spoke about how I make the most of any downtime I encounter when travelling either on business or vacation. In this post I’d like to speak about what I think is needed to make the frequent travellers experience more enjoyable.

Firstly at the airport. Wouldn’t it be great if they had a gaming centre available. Now I’m not talking about an arcade setup, rather somewhere to go, pay some money and have access to console and PC gaming. I couldn’t think of anything more enjoyable that whiling away a few hours with the likes of CoD4, GT5 and WoW. Perhaps one reason why something like this hasn’t taken off, even in the larger airports, is they are afraid of how many people like me would end up missing their flights, as they just wanted to ding that last level in WoW. On the plane. Well this is an easy one. Wireless please. Now this I guess for some is a double edged sword, given that if I am connected, and travelling on business, wouldn’t I be expected to do a spot of work on the plane. Well to be honest I actually wouldn’t mind that, as it would mean once I got to my destination I wouldn’t need to check in on a host of emails, especially if I’ve been doing a long haul flight. With wireless on board I can also blog, surf, use Skype and perhaps even ding that last level in WoW I wasn’t able to make at the airport. Having now travelled on Qantas I can without doubt say their in-flight entertainment is 100% better than that offered by British Airways, simply because they offer Video On Demand. I found myself on the BA flight home from Singapore struggling to work out when movies were starting, whereas on the Qantas flights the choice was at the touch of a button. (all airlines should take a look at how Virgin America is changing the game with their in-flight entertainment choices) Both airlines, neigh all airlines, also need to think about updating their gaming choice. Come on would it really be that hard to stick some XB360 arcade titles down and make these available? How about offering rental of both PSP and DS hardware and games, I know some of the Asian airlines already do this. I think airlines need to look at their customer base and they would probably realise that a lot of people travelling on these would jump at the chance to rent such accessories, even if it came at a small cost. At the hotel. Again I’d love to see the ability to rent the likes of a PS3 or XB360. Perhaps they could setup their own little private network in the hotel for a spot of online gaming.

Oh and one last thing I’d love to see, this time while I’m away from home base, would be for the mobile phone network providers to abolish, or at the very least reduce, roaming rates. It’s astonishing how easy it is to run up a massive phone bill when on International duty with even just a few hours of web browsing. I expect some additional cost, but at present, even when roaming in Europe, these costs can work out to be very expensive.

So there you have it, my own thoughts on what is needed in the coming years to my make life, and that other my fellow frequent travellers a little bit more bearable.

Posted on March 24th, 2008 by nigel