An aerotropolis is a city where the layout, infrastructure, industry, and economy are centered on and sustained by an airport. The aerotropolis enhances economic development within 20-30 kilometers from the airport, which serves as a multimodal “airport city” commercial center. It is similar in form to a traditional city, which contains
- The airport’s aeronautical, logistics, and commercial facilities, anchoring a multimodal, multifunctional airport city as its center; and
- Outlying corridors and clusters of aviation-oriented businesses and industries, and associated residential developments that feed off each other and their accessibility to the airport and other key transport and urban nodes.
- – Logistics and distribution centres
- – High-value, time-critical manufacturing firms
- – Office buildings and business parks
- – Hotel, convention, and exhibition complexes
- – Tourist and entertainment venues
- – Retail centers and wholesale merchandise marts
- – ICT (digital) and R&D parks
- – Bioscience and medical clusters
- – Higher education campuses
- – Mixed-use commercial/residential developments
The Aerotropolis proposes to provide businesses located near or with good transport access to Suvarnabhumi and U-Tapao Airports with speedy connectivity to their national and worldwide suppliers, customers, clients, and enterprise partners. It also sees the opportunity to draw tourists and attract investment in high-end manufacturing and modern business services by powering up the eastern seaboard airports, seaports, and improved multimodal surface transport connectivity. In the long run, this will greatly benefit the EEC municipalities and provinces.
EEC Aerotropolis Strategic Objectives
- Make the EEC the fastest, most agile, and best-connected location to do business in Southeast Asia.
- Improved surface transportation connects firms more efficiently to key EEC clusters and broader regional markets.
- Utilize speedy connectivity to attract high-value, time-critical aviation-oriented businesses and industries that will accelerate the growth and modernize the economic base of Thailand’s Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC), leading the economic transformation of the nation.
- Reinforce the above through labor-force upgrading and well- designed aviation-linked urban, commercial, industrial, and tourist clusters that are economically efficient, attractive, and sustainable.
- Fully leverage the Fifth Wave of transportation-driven development.
Reference: Aerotropolis Business Concepts by John D. Kasarda, PhD
