SAGA: At a time when airports across Japan are opening eateries, shopping malls and other facilities to amuse passengers while they wait to board their flights, Saga Airport in Saga prefecture has become the first in the country to install a karaoke booth.
The company that operates the airport expects that the booth will be used not only by passengers on domestic air routes, but also by inbound foreign tourists, who have been increasing in number since the end of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The karaoke booth – called “Saganosora” (Saga sky) – is shaped somewhat like a telephone booth.
It was opened for a trial run on the airport’s first floor on Jan 22 and has since been relocated to the third floor of the international terminal building.
It is 2.4m high and can accommodate up to four people at once, although it is equipped with only two microphones.
For 100 yen (67 US cents) a song, travellers can don a pair of headphones and sing along to music.
Kyushu-Saga International Airport Building, the Saga-based firm that runs the airport, introduced the karaoke booth to give passengers something fun to do as they wait to board their planes.
The booth was made by Daiichikosho, the Tokyo-based company that operates the Big Echo chain of karaoke parlours.
The company that operates the airport gave the booth its name and installed it on the first floor near the central stairway so that it could easily be seen by both domestic and international travellers. - The Japan News/ANN
