(Sky)Walk Into a City

I roamed around last weekend in Boston downtown, and incidentally had an amazing experience that made me to write this post.

Every city has huge skyscrapers, but the way this city has made use of it stands out.There is a building named Prudential Center, which is of 52 floors. The top of this floor has been converted to an observatory. It is so high that one can have a complete look around the whole city. It looks so amazing at the top, that only if you experience it, you can understand its significance. Nighttime is also fascinating, with the whole city lit up giving it a beautiful look. But it doesn’t come free; there is a nominal charge for this facility, which one feels expensive while at the ticket counter. One can feel that he can get such a look from the plane too.

But hold on, there is much more coming, and that is the topic I want to iterate in this post.
What the authorities have done here is to convert this observatory into a complete tourist attraction, informative as well as interesting. When you walk into the entrance, you’ll be given a small phone like device which has recorded tapes. Every set of three windows has a small no. written on top of it, which if you type in in your device, you’ll hear recorded voices. They’ll take you to a complete tour of the view that you are then experiencing. They’ll pinpoint to specific places, and tell you the history behind it. It is more interactive and lets you know about the places in historical details. It is much better than having a tour guide, saying sthg loud which you would rarely pay attention to. It is like a virtual tour guide for an individual. Even the kids get this device, and they have diff. recordings for them, which they can access dialing diff. nos.

The information that is given is deeply recursive and unending e.g. if they show u a house of a famous poet, then u can go into detail, and know more about this person, if you want by dialing diff. nos. as instructed.The complete history of Boston is captured on the interior walls, the war that took place there, the demography of the place, how the place has evolved, its culture ; all these things have been brought out in a very interesting manner, which makes it being read by ppl attentively.

Who would like to read a piece of history of an alien land, if it is just hanging on the wall.But if it involves some fun like pressing buttons to illuminate some lights on the plasma board, there would b many ppl who would try such a thing.All the famous men/women, who belonged to Boston have a presence in that place.

This place is also famous for watching sunset, and it does get romantic at the dusk.

I think after this tour of the place I know more abt Boston than any other Indian city, at least on paper. But this was the point I was coming to.

Look how a naïve idea has been turned into a good marketing proposition. This place could have been very easily become “just-a-view-from-a-skyscraper” kinda thing.But due to such innovation, it has turned out to be a big tourist attraction.

Who would not like to finish off a tour to a city in one hour, n this place lets u do exactly that.The way the history is rendered not only makes it interesting, but also makes ppl remember it for long.

I was just wondering, if they can, why can’t we, or why didn’t we.
India doesn’t have a dearth of skyscrapers, but we couldn’t we come up with such an idea.
Is it becoz of lack of funds or simply lack of imagination. We do a lot of talking when it comes to tourism, but we don’t c things executing in reality. Who or what is to be blamed?
I don’t think there is lack of such ideas in India, but its simply the will to back them up which is lacking. Govt. can earn a lot from tourism, it can be a big contributor in our GDP, if harnessed in right directions. N the amazing part of such ideas like Skywalk is, tht it doesn’t require only tourists to sustain their day-to-day expenses, the local populace will make it earn good money. I could see a no. of local ppl who were hvg this exp. along with us foreigners. So, making money on one such idea would not b tough.

This is an idea worth investing, and we need many more ideas like this if we think of making India a preferred destination for tourists around the world.

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