Discounts, entertainment and air miles can encourage longer airport dwell times and higher spend, says survey

INTERNATIONAL. New research from loyalty marketing company ICLP indicates that 42% of travellers would arrive at the airport earlier if they were offered shopping discounts and 46% would arrive sooner if they benefited from dining vouchers and discounts. Nearly one-third (32%) said they would arrive earlier if the airport offered engaging entertainment or exhibitions.

The ICLP study noted that a better understanding of traveller motivations can enable airports to influence their behaviour and increase customer spend.

It added that airports could do more to overcome travellers’ fears of long queues and their unfamiliarity with the airport, to boost dwell times and tempt them to spend more.

In other findings, 35% of those polled said they would feel encouraged to purchase more at the airport if they received air miles, and 24% said they would spend more if they could compare the price of goods between inbound and outbound airports.

Discounts are a key incentive, as noted above, with both infrequent (43%) and frequent (46%) travellers saying they could be encouraged to spend more by these initiatives.

40% of passengers said they would choose an airport based on its loyalty or reward programme, with 18% saying they would spend more if they had access to a programme that was linked to spending at the airport.

ICLP Managing Director Mignon Buckingham: “Meaningful customer relationships are based on understanding the airport passenger as an individual”

“However, with only 7% of airports rating a loyalty programme among their top priorities, it seems that passengers set greater store by loyalty schemes than the airports that serve them,” ICLP noted.

ICLP Managing Director Mignon Buckingham said: “Meaningful customer relationships are based on identifying and understanding the airport passenger as an individual, and then finding ways to engage that customer. As in any other business, airports need to look at efficiency and profitability, but as competition increases and market trends evolve, many struggle to retain this profitability,” she said.

“Since around 40% of airports’ revenues are non-aeronautical, often delivering higher profitability than aeronautical revenues, it’s not surprising that more airports are turning to this industry to maximise commercial success. Our survey shows that by engaging intelligently with customers there is potential to increase non-aeronautical revenue at a time when it has never been a more important source of income for airports.”

All research data was taken from the 2017 ICLP airport and passenger surveys; 35 airports and 2,589 passengers were surveyed.

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