literally another aussie in london

in Sri Lanka – Duty free

When you arrive In Sri Lanka two things are right in your face, the presidents face and the captain of the cricket team’s , King Kumar, face.

The president is everywhere in Sri Lanka, which is a shame for Sri Lankans as he looks as much like Saddam Hussein as you can if you are Sri Lankan.  Surely if you are putting your picture all over everything in the country you’d try to look less like a famous dictator of the last few years.

Once you go through customs, you make your way to duty free like you do at most airports, but the duty free at Colombo isn’t just perfume, grog and cigarettes, no, this place has white goods.   Lots of white goods.

The first shop has washing machines, fridges, and all sorts of things that are huge and expensive.

At first I thought, what an odd thing to do, but seconds later I saw the genius.

Who wants half price liquor, when you can get a half price fridge?

The fridge will keep your liquor cold, it is perfection.

One family bought a fridge and a washing machine.  I didn’t see if they took it away in a tuk tuk, but I can hope.

The whole fridges thing did make me think about duty free, what else can you have just inside the airport for cheaper than anywhere else in the country?

Cars, motorbikes, prostitutes, computers, swimming pool sized tubs of ice cream, the list is endless.

Sure, not all these things have duty on them, I suppose, but if you walked through an airport duty free place that had fridges, cars, bikes, prostitutes and colossal tubes of ice cream, would you ever stop talking about it?

That is marketing 101 my friends.

September 4, 2010 - Posted by Jrod | sri lanka | airports, duty free