India, Sept. 27 -- There was a time when I reached an airport with one fairly simple agenda: check in, get through security, find coffee and reach my gate. Anything nice that happened in between was a bonus.

That relationship with airports has changed rather dramatically. Lounge access is saved on our cards, reward points are checked before bookings are made, and airport dining benefits can influence where we spend the two hours before a flight. The holiday, in many ways, has already started before anyone calls your boarding group. And travel companies have noticed.

This World Tourism Day, one interesting shift in Indian travel is happening not at the destination, but in all those hours surrounding the flight. The airport experience and...