Market Sexmentation

"Market segmentation you mean, you sick little pervert", you might retort at my face. Well, give me a chance to explain my perverse and twisted ideology. Read on.

Like all companies, the aviation sector is a big fan of the market segmentation strategy; which is to segregate different customer groups (eg. by age or gender) and offer products to cater to their needs. So in aviation, certain airlines target certain passenger groups on certain routes. For example, flights between Japan/South Korea and Bangkok demands more tourist-friendly services as there are hordes of Japanese/South Korean tourists flocking to the Land of Smiles (why? more will be covered later).
Other more quirky passenger groups would have to be those on flight OZ573/574 of Asiana Airlines from Tashkent,Uzbekistan to Seoul, Korea, which would constitute of lonely Korean men seeking fair, beautiful Uzbek "Mrs Kim-to-be"s. Flights from Korea to Vietnam, the Philippines and Mongolia have also become "love-ships" for lovelorn Korean men on an odyssey in search of matrimonial enlightment.

Speaking of foreign brides, recently, in the news, there's this old (64+ years old) cobbler who went to Vietnam brides agency and wrote a worthless cheque (he delibrately put a dot behind the $10 000 so it became $1.0000) as $10 000 deposit for a bride, giving to the unsuspecting matchmaker, then bring the 19year old girl home, and what happened next was the following scenario:

"Lecherous Singapore Ah Pek vs Vietnamese Girl"

K.O.!

Then when the agency notified him on the error, he returned the "good", after more or less used, and the fragile packaging had been tampered with. He did the same trick with about 3 different matchmaking agencies! Now he's behind bars. BASTARD! BAKAYARO! #$%^

Ok, back to aviation, so you know airlines target different groups, such as business passengers vs tourists. And the tourists group can be further divided to different market segments;
- holidaymakers (eg. to resort destinations. Think pre-tsunami-washed-up Phuket),
- health tourism (Did you know Singapore is a popular destination for Middle-Easterners going for medical checkups? Some hospitals even have Arabic TV programmes to pamper their oil-rich patients),
- birth tourism (very popular with gestating Korean women who fly to the USA {most popularly Los Angeles which has a large Korean speaking population} and want a US citizenship to be her first gift to her newborn *aww so sweet*) and more sinisterly,
- sex tourism.

Many of us would think sex tourism as paedophiles seeking criminal acts with innocent cherubs or lecherous perverts wanting a one-night-stand-at-every-one-place. I remember when I was in Bangkok, the notorious Patpong area, Thai harlots were parading en masse in elegant gowns outside brothels and calling out in Japanese to passing Nipponese-of-the-opposite-sex, "Irrasshaimase! Irrasshaimase!" Hence, that might explain the revenue Japan Airlines reaps on the lucrative Narita-Bangkok route. In addition to the air tickets bought by thousands of Thai women flying to Japan for "work".

Women trafficking is also part of this lucrative trade, as with bogus tourists who stay on as illegal immigrants. (Think China women travelling in tour groups to Singapore who do a David Copperfield and magically vanished!) However, disappearing tourists are nothing compared to trafficking in women. I remember reading an article about the problem of the rising number of Uzbek (remember the kimchi brides?) prostitutes in our neighbour, Malaysia. This is in line with Uzbekistan Airways flying direct flights to the country. Were the women trafficked by criminal gangs who force them into prostitution? Could Uzbekistan Airways be profitting on the invisible trade and the streetwalkers' hardearned wages? I could only wonder. In China and Hong Kong, Korean call girls are also making their presence with the growing popularity of K-culture and liberisation of the Korea-China air links.

In a similar situation in Singapore, ever since Transaero Airlines of Russia begun non-stop Moscow-Singapore flights, my friends have told me of the growing presence of Russian prostitutes competing with the current cosmopolitan community of Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai and Indonesian hookers in infamous Geylang for the Libidinous Singapore Male. The growth in number of flights between Singapore and Vietnam has also seen an increase in Vietnamese mail-order brides (legal) and unmentionables (illegal). Could the opening up of our skies be fueling the sex trade? With more Chinese carriers flying to Singapore from a variety of Chinese cities, there has also been a parallel increase in the number of Chinese "wandering swallows" who was described in a reader's comment in the local Straits Times as coming en masse "to walk the gold-laden streets of Singapore". These sweet-talking birds have even flocked to tourist areas and shopping districts, driving worried parents to write letters to the local daily, asking authorities to stem the vice activities for the protection of their school-going sons (or rather, their sons' chastity).

Routes deemed profitable by airlines could be grounds for the proliferation of the vice trade. With more and more airlines entering the already saturated aviation industry, could the practice of market segmentation help bring in cash flows from the sex industry? When there's demand, there's supply. Are airlines willing to close an eye to the growth in demand for cross-nation sex trade to reap profits and survive in the cutthroat industry?

Could our vision to be the leading aviation hub backfire to turn Singapore to a fantasy playground for lustful desires? As prostitution is legal in sterilised Singapore, with more air links to other states, especially with the rise of budget airlines, could our society be under threat from this market sexmentation strategy of airlines?