The lost Art of Duty-Free shopping
Duty-free shopping is one of the many attractions while travelling. The long lay-away between destinations and its pitfalls is only satisfied by the fulfillment of shopping. Many a patrons have come and gone through the gates at the departure hall, and after so many years a “set-in-their-ways,” approach is had while making their transition from one airport to the next. It’s time to buckle down — pardon the pun — and to start taking the privileges of gift shopping for other people more seriously.
Don’t go shopping thorough these gates for luxury items if your reason for doing so is shopping for shopping’s sake. Instead, treat your next luxury item pick-up-point as a shopping mall; with all the frivolous bits and bobs ready for you at the swipe of a credit card. Everyday liberties, otherwise had at your typical shopping center, retail therapy is a part of the journey that is the miracle of travel and aeronautical engineering, not to mention the euphoria afforded with airport decor and design.
Duty-free shopping compromises of cartons of cigarettes, budget alcohol and assorted liqueur, my personal favorite… something for your partner, in the cologne or perfume and other branded items section, can also be found in the aisles of the leisure wonderland known to us by now as a favorite pastime or simply apart of essential everyday living. The difference is that you are on holiday, so swipe away if cash is not your personal preference.
The term retail-therapy may suggest otherwise underpinning notions of feeling good in times of despair, but with shopping done at airport changeover’s it can be that much more exciting. The make-do situation of airport shopping had been a long undue process of people simply going through the motions of shopping and thinking for others, which is the effect of placing orders with friends on lay-away. The boredom would kick in eventually and finally as one thing would lead to another airport shopping would become what it is today, a process of painstaking run-of-the-mill shopping.
A quick fix to this problem in general and to every layman facing similar challenges in life, one only has to look as far as the problem itself, to mend its broken wings. Even with retail-therapy there are pitfalls where the best and only way to put right what went wrong is to understand that travel, like most things, when swept by the wayside, can be easily corrected by reaping the enjoyment of the entire process; from booking flights to bathing in the sun there is nothing greater than everything in-between.
