Remember the herd of goats, sheep, llamas and burros that the Chicago Department of Aviation hired to eat weeds on about 120 acres of land at O’Hare Airport?
From August through mid-November, 37 animals from a no-kill shelter specializing in the rescue of farm and exotic animals munched their way through scrub vegetation on four sites that included hilly areas along creeks or streams and roadway right-of ways that were hard to get to with traditional landscaping equipment.
Now that winter is here, the animals are off-duty. But they’ll back in the spring to dine on a new crop of pesky weeds.
Chicago O’Hare International, one of the country’s busiest and most stressful airports, took a decidedly mellow turn this week with the opening of a yoga room in Terminal 3, adjacent to the airport’s indoor urban garden.
“The yoga room provides a space for yoga practice as well as a place to relax or meditate,” said Rosemarie Andolini, Chicago Department of Aviation commissioner. “This is yet another amenity to help make the travel experience at O’Hare ‘best-in-class.’ ”
O’Hare’s yoga room has a sustainable bamboo wood floor, floor-to-ceiling mirrors along one wall, exercise mats and an area to store personal articles and garments. A wall-mounted video monitor plays soothing sounds and displays yoga exercise techniques and images of nature. Frosted windows along one side of the room provide privacy and natural light.
“The importance of exercise and the opportunity in clearing the mind and body during long travel days cannot be overstated as it relates to one’s health,” said Brad Jersey, CEO and founder of nLIVEn Health, a company that places sponsored interactive health-care campaigns in airports. “We know from our studies that 75 percent of frequent fliers participate in some workout regimen, so this is a perfect complement at ORD.”
Wellness tourism is a $438.6 billion global market “and a rapidly growing niche within the $3.2 trillion global tourism economy,” according to the a study presented in October at the Global Wellness Tourism Congress in New Delhi, India.
The Global Wellness Tourism Economy report, conducted by SRI International, found that wellness tourism accounts for 14 percent of all domestic and international tourism expenditures and is a segment projected to grow by more than 9 percent a year through 2017, nearly twice the rate of global tourism overall.
Chicago’s O’Hare’s yoga room continues a trend begun at San Francisco International in January 2012, when it opened the world’s first yoga room at an airport. Located in the refurbished Terminal 2, just past the security checkpoint, SFO’s space is a calming blue, with subdued lighting.
“Feedback on the space in T2 has been so positive that a second yoga room is being built as part of the new Boarding Area E in T3, which is scheduled to open at the end of January,” said airport spokesman Charles Schuler.
Other airports have also set aside designated space for yoga and stretching, including Dallas/Fort Worth International, which created a yoga “studio” by installing a privacy screen in front of a window on a walkway between Terminals B and D, and Burlington International Airport in Vermont.
“As a practitioner of Ashtanga yoga, I see a yoga room as a priceless benefit to have at an airport,” said Stacy Lu, a health writer in training to be a yoga teacher. “Not only does doing yoga increase circulation—which is good prep for a long-haul flight—it may have a calming effect on jittery fliers like myself.”
For those planning to take advantage of an airport yoga room, Lu suggests dressing in layers: long leggings or yoga pants with a camisole, topped by a long-sleeve top and maybe sweater to stay warm on the flight.
“I would avoid wearing anything too tight or revealing,” she said, “particularly in an international hub.”
(My story about O’Hare’s new yoga room first appeared on CNBC Road Warrior)
Chicago’s O’Hare and Midway airports now have their own radio stations.
The 24-hour “AIR Chicago” was created for the Chicago Department of Aviation (CDA) by Clear Chanel Airports, a division of Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings, Inc., and features smooth jazz music interspersed with airport traffic and weather reports, business news, information about the airports and advertising.
Clear Channel has the indoor advertising contract at the Chicago airports “and this was an opportunity to start a different kind of branding, get more people interested in what we do at the airport, and reach out to a lot more people,” said Karen Pride, CDA spokeswoman.
Pride said the CDA has already recorded “vignettes” about holiday travel that will begin running on AIR Chicago in December and is working on others that might cover everything from sustainability efforts underway at the airports to the art and live music programs offered. There might also be opportunities for airline partners to record messages.
“There are a lot of applications that could be integrated into AIR Chicago,” said Pride. “The possibilities are endless.”
The AIR Chicago programming can be found on iHeartRadio.com and the iHeartRadio app, on the CDA’s website, and on Clear Channel’s local HD2 digital station, WKSC-FM/103.5 KISS FM.
While AIR Chicago is the first 24-hour radio station dedicated to information about the Chicago airports, it is not the first airport radio station. Some airports, such as Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International, have low-power AM radio stations broadcasting airport parking and traffic information, with the audio also available online. Seattle-Tacoma International Airport offers a web radio player showcasing northwest music.
As part of its efforts to operate the greenest airport anywhere, this week the Chicago Department of Aviation (CDA) showed off a herd of 25 goats, sheep, llamas and burros that have been grazing on O’Hare Airport property the past few weeks as part of the airport’s Sustainable Vegetation Management initiative.
“Project HERD” is tasked with munching unwanted vegetation on up to 120 acres of airport property that is difficult to maintain with traditional landscaping equipment.
The herd will be on duty as long as weather permits and then come back to work in the fall of 2104.
And a hard working herd it is: just a few hours before the airport had their event to show off the project to media, a baby sheep was born. He’s been named O’Hare.
O’Hare isn’t the only airport to have animals as part of its landscaping crew. San Francisco International Airport and Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport have programs like this currently underway. Seattle-Tacoma International Airport tried it a few years back, but decided not to continue with the project.
