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Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/443582
bcbusiness.ca February 2015 BCBusiness 45 where the arrivals atrium and cross- border and international terminals intersect. In 1993, the cash-strapped airport authority commissioned a cast- ing of the bronze canoe for the planned international terminal, at a cost of $3 million. While controversial at the time, the investment has helped cement YVR's reputation as a distinctly West Coast place to make a connection. YVR now allocates around one per cent of its capital budget, $1.8 million last year, toward building its art col- lection, which includes Musqueam weavings, Inuit soapstone carvings and bronzes, traditional Coast Salish masks and Haida totem poles scattered about the two terminals. As far as SFU's Brent McFadden is concerned, it's money well spent. "Atmospherics offer a way to interact with your customer base," he says. "If you're trying to be a novel and innovative airport, novel and innova- tive art can help reinforce your brand, which helps enforce that image in the customer's mind." While YVR has succeeded in creating an environment where people want to shop and eat, Vancouver International remains a relatively small market airport with fewer business class passengers and more discount seekers, which limits its revenue potential on the aeronau- tical side. YVR now gets only 46 per cent of its revenues from airlines —the bread-and-butter fees that most air- ports rely on (Toronto's Pearson, Rich- mond notes, derives 67 per cent of its revenues from airline landing fees). Since YVR can't compete on the low end with neighbouring Bellingham air- port ("they get government grants and we pay the government rent"), the air- port's increasing focus is to steal more of the lucrative trans-Pacific market—passengers who stay longer and spend more—from West Coast hubs Seattle, Los Ange- les and San Francisco. L o ok i n g out t he sheath glass wall from the point where the international terminal abruptly ends, R ich- mond points at the con- crete pad that will host the airport's next lateral expansion. YVR's modular terminals have slowly crept out from the original Y-shaped building, as the airport has increased its tally of global operators and in the process built its reputation as a North American gateway to Asia ( YVR pro- cessed 8.5 million international pas- sengers last year, while Seattle's airport saw 3.2 million; San Francisco Interna- tional, serving a regional population three times Vancouver's, processed 9.6 million). That expansion will likely include a terminal where international passengers can change planes—and yes, shop—without ever entering Can- ada, perhaps opening up direct routes to Lima, Santiago or second-tier Chi- nese cities like Xiamen. With every new route, argues Richmond, come myriad benefits to local tourism, post-second- ary institutions and the economy as a whole. "Once you build that connec- tion, the possibilities are endless." ■ B.C.'s most loved Brands