Travelers are a studied bunch. No doubt that’s why all these infographics are popping up. Or maybe it’s just fun to rustle these up. Here are two that showed up in my inbox this week:
The first one is from Rasmussen College and highlights how travelers use social media when on vacation.
The other was put together by Travelex and, way down at the bottom, shows that only 5% of traverers get their travel cash at the airport before they leave on a trip, 26% get cash at the airport in their destination city (-presumably at a money exchange booth?) and 24% seek out an ATM in town.
I had a chance to tag along with 8-year old Harry Winsor, his brother Charlie and their parents today on a VIP visit to the Future of Flight Aviation Center and the Boeing Factory Tour in Mukilteo,Wa.
Harry and his family were getting the royal treatment in part to make up for the fact that, back in March, Boeing sent young Harry a terse form letter in response to his letter containing a picture of a jet airplane he’d designed.
The form letter, which Harry’s dad, John, posted on his blog, said the giant aerospace company does not accept unsolicited ideas and so disposed of his “message” and “retained no copies.” Word got out and the universal response of aviation geeks, bloggers and aerospace engineers who’d once been kids was “Not cool. Not cool at all.”
Luckily for Harry – and for Boeing – just a few weeks before Harry got his “Thanks, but no thanks” letter from Boeing, the corporate communications folks at Boeing got their Twitter accounts. And Todd Blecher, Boeing’s Corporate Communications Director, was paying attention. As documented on the Airline Reporter blog and elsewhere, Blecher Tweeted a response that said, “….For kids we can do better. We’ll work on it.”
And it certainly appears that they are. Blecher flew to Seattle this week to be on hand while Harry and his family got a VIP tour of the Boeing Factory and the non-profit Future of Flight center next door. And Blecher explained that the company is working on a better letter to send out to enthusiastic kids like Harry who send in letters and pictures. The first letter they drafted was too dry and formal. The next version they wrote up read too much like a recruitment letter, “It said, ‘Study science and come work for Boeing,’ ” says Blecher, “So we tried again. My boss took the letter home and had his five kids take a look at it.”
In the meantime, today Harry and Charlie got to see where their favorite airplanes get made. They got a bagful of cool Boeing airplane swag. And they got to to see their drawings exhibited alongside a few dozen other imaginative airplane drawings by children and adults from around the world in the Future of Flight’s Harry Winsor Design Your Own Aircraft Show .
And, already a Well-Mannered Traveler, Harry didn’t come empty handed. He presented Boeing and the Future of Flight with a framed drawing he’d made especially for the occasion.
I’ll post a gallery of some of the airplane artwork tomorrow, but in the meantime, see aerospace reporter Aubrey Cohen’s great photo gallery and article about Harry and Charlie’s day.
