Columnists
The egalitarian spirit
If you take the train from Union Station in Toronto from time to time, as I do, you probably find it annoying to hear them announce (if you can hear it at all) “VIA business-class passengers may board at any time after they have finished their free drinks and snacks in the lounge. All other passengers, just stand there and wait in line until we feel like calling you.” Welcome to the world of two-tiered service— a world that’s going to see more and more marketing directed at the upper tier.
The statistics are everywhere. For example, spending by America’s wealthiest five per cent has gone up 35 per cent over the past decade, compared to just 10 per cent for the rest of us. And our friends in the world of luxury goods and services have noticed.
As the New York Times recently put it, “Whether they are selling fancy cookware, natural cheeses or single malt Scotch, purveyors of goods for the wealthy are competing more and offering new products. Downscale items like canned meat or tobacco aren’t drawing as many new entrants into the market.” As if to bear out this prophecy, just the other day Maple Leaf Foods, maker of wieners, bologna and salami, announced a new line of artisanal foods—Canadian whisky and apple bacon, Atlantic coarse salt prosciutto and Ontario-inspired cherrywood smoked ham—aimed unabashedly at upper-income customers.
But there are decisions to be made when marketing to the wealthy. Take Norwegian Cruise Line. As reported by the New York Times, a liner carries 4,200 passengers; but only 275 of them can enjoy a special “Haven” section that offers concierge and butler services as well as a private pool, sundeck and restaurant. At first, the company offered a program that let regular passengers buy their way into the Haven. But then it deliberately stopped doing so. Why? According to the former chief executive of Norwegian, the elite class passenger “wants to be surrounded by peple with similar characteristics.” What characteristics? A win ning smile? A firm handshake? A fondness for crokinole? No. It’s obviously an easy familiarity with money. You don’t want to find yourself sitting by the pool in the Haven next to some Homer Simpson schmuck, just because he won the poker game last week and has some surplus cash.
Says another cruise company executive, big money clients “are looking for constant validation that they are a higher value customer.” That constant validation presumably means the constant flow of privileges not afforded the ordinary customer. Hardly a pursuit of the egalitarian spirit.
If the upper tier doesn’t want to associate with the lower tier, what happens when they are exposed to one another? Believe it or not, people have actually studied this. According to Mark Kingwell, writing in the The Globe and Mail, a professor DeCelles from the University of Toronto studied air rage and concluded that when airlines sold tickets at different class levels, air rage incidents were nearly four-times as likely as when there was uniform pricing. In fact, air rage was more common among the upper tier than the lower tier. (I don’t know exactly what constitutes air rage but I assume it includes the incident when the daughter of a Korean Air executive had the plane turned back because her macadamia nuts were not served in a dish. Grumbling about the cold camembert and crackers may not quite make the grade, although it sure stokes the resentment of those passengers offered nothing to eat.)
I realize there are arguments in favour of tiered service. What’s the harm in allowing extra perks for those willing to pay for them? And the premium price subsidizes the ordinary traveller, so tiered service is really a grand exercise in democracy to make ordinary service affordable to more people. But I find it hard to disagree with Thomas Sander, a specialist in civic engagement at Harvard University, who says, according to the New York Times, “We are doing a much worse job of living out the egalitarian dream that has been our hallmark.” Maybe it’s because we’re not encouraged to dream about equality anymore; instead, we’re invited to dream of joining the five-percenters. And that’s a zero-sum game: only five per cent of all of us can belong to the club. Those in the club already aren’t all that anxious to give up their places; and if you make it in, you increase the chances that I won’t.
What about Wellington, then? Should we be trying harder to cater to elite level travellers, even if that means elbowing out the ordinary riff raff? I’m going to answer that rhetorical question with an emphatic “no.” In fact, I think that Wellington’s greatest asset is its egalitarian ways. If I were Wellington’s director of tourism, I would be subsidizing those regular community dinners held at St. Andrew’s Anglican Church, holding them through the summer months and marketing them to tourists. Sit down and introduce yourself to your neighbour, whomever he or she may be. The egalitarian spirit lives on here.
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