Last week I wrote about the future/importance of brand in asset management – well, travel experiences over the holidays are almost always a wonderful opportunity to point out the past, present and future of brands, in this case “developed” vs. “developing” countries.

Funny choice of words. When it comes to travel and customer service, the opposite is true; Europe and the US are haplessly behind (old, 19th century, anachronistic, developing, pick your favorite word), while Asia is leading the way.

Let me tell you a little story to make my point.

Location: HK, Central. I am leaving HK to write our annual research review on a beach in the Pacific. Twenty-four hours before the flight(s), I take the elevator from our office in Two IFC to the city express check-in:

– Estimated time from office to check-in counter: less than five minutes.
– People in front of me: Zero.
– Estimated time to check luggage and receive boarding passes: less than two minutes.

I head out to dinner. My flight is the next day at 3pm. At 2pm I am sitting on the patio of my favorite Italian restaurant in Central, Isola, sipping on a doppio ristretto.

– 2:05pm: I get on the airport express to the airport.
– 2:29pm: I get out at the airport and go through security and immigration.
– 2:36pm: I head to the gate.
– 2:40pm: I board the plane to Japan.
– 3:05pm: My flight leaves.

Thus, it took me, overall, about one hour to get onto an international flight from a major airport in Asia the day before Christmas.

Compare to this the experiences for Thomas Friedman, Tyler Brule, or any other prominent frequent flier.

Brule this weekend in the FT, referring to how Heathrow has handled the holiday traffic and the bad weather, called it “the wrong kind of airport”, Philip Stephens went further and entitled his latest column: “Britain shamed by Heathrow’s terminal misery”.

A few excerpts:

Tyler Brule: “Why isn’t the UK able to deal with this and what does it do for the nation’s brand? … The UK’s inability to cope doesn’t have so much to do with the fall in mercury as it does with a fall in service standards… an international airport in a country that does, in fact, get snow, should be able to field enough de-icing trucks, ploughs, gritting vehicles, and staff to deal with a winter storm… there was some miserable weather about but much of it wasn’t the stuff that should be bringing a G8 economy to a grinding halt.”

Philip Stephens: “To fly from Istanbul to London is to travel from the first to the third world. Ataturk international airport sparkles with steel and glass modernity – a monument to Turkey’s status as a rising power. Heathrow’s Terminal 3, scarred by broken travelators, exposed ceiling voids and filthy carpeting has become an emblem of national decline.”

Thomas Friedman: “I took off from Hong Kong’s ultramodern airport after riding out there from downtown on a sleek high-speed train — with wireless connectivity that was so good I was able to surf the Web the whole way on my laptop. Landing at Kennedy Airport from Hong Kong was, as I’ve argued before, like going from the Jetsons to the Flintstones. The ugly, low-ceilinged arrival hall was cramped, and using a luggage cart cost $3. (Couldn’t we at least supply foreign visitors with a free luggage cart, like other major airports in the world?) As I looked around at this dingy room, it reminded of somewhere I had been before. Then I remembered: It was the luggage hall in the old Hong Kong Kai Tak Airport. It closed in 1998.”

Most “developing” countries still aspire to be like the US. I always wonder what people from those countries will think when they land in London or New York and take a cab or train into the city.

Conversely, most people in “developed” countries have no idea how far they are falling behind in terms of service quality and technology vis-a-vis the East.

For the time being, the “America” and “Europe” brands are still holding up (albeit often with a “how quaint” footnote), but the times are a-changin.

Time to wake up to a brand new world.