FRANCE. Groupe ADP is to launch a new retail and hospitality concept and brand called Extime that it plans to deploy within its own airports and franchise to others around the world. The company announced the launch as it revealed its annual results for 2021.
In a statement, Groupe ADP said: “Extime capitalises on the know-how deployed for several years in the Paris hubs and in the group, and regroups it in a single brand. The preferred deployment model is that of a franchise, with a franchisor, Aéroports de Paris, providing the Extime franchise and its know-how to franchisees.”
The new concept is based around four levers of value creation. These include stimulating traffic through aviation marketing focused on the highest contributing destinations such as China. It also aims to drive demand pre-travel “via a high-performance digital ecosystem consisting of a loyalty programme” – brands will include Extime Reward and Extime Pass, plus a marketplace www.extime.com.
Under the business model, operations will be carried out by companies that are at least 50% owned by the group, bearing the Extime name. In addition, the plan includes developing airside ‘Boutique Terminals’ that aims for “excellence in design and architecture, in service and reception, and in the range of brands and concepts”.
The plan is to deploy the new strategy at the Paris airports starting in 2022/23, group-wide thereafter, and at other airports from 2024.
Within this new strategy for retail and hospitality (more details will be revealed next month), ADP is changing the definition of sales per passenger at its airports. This will now include all retail activities airside: shops, bars and restaurants, foreign exchange & tax refund counters, commercial lounges, VIP reception, advertising and other paid services. Previously this definition covered sales from airside shops.
The group target is to raise spend per passenger under the new definition from €25.30 in 2021 to €27.50 by 2025.
Groupe ADP Chairman and CEO Augustin de Romanet said: “The deployment of retail and hospitality activities of the new Extime strategy, in Paris then abroad, will be decisive in the group’s search for competitiveness thanks to the implementation of a franchise concept that is new to the airport industry.
“Extime carries a promise of excellence not only in terms of retail performance and customer satisfaction, but also in terms of profitability and productivity of retail operations.”
The introduction of the Extime model is part of a 2022-2025 strategic roadmap (titled ‘2025 Pioneers’), which Groupe ADP said will “build the foundation of a new airport model geared towards sustainability and performance, in line with societal and environmental expectations”.
Groupe ADP said in a statement: “At the heart of the industrial transformation initiated for 2025 Pioneers is the evolution of airports towards multimodal and energy hubs.”
It said that these “will no longer be a place to fly, but a place where one benefits from renewed connectivity, offering them a choice between different modes of travel (long and short-distance rail, bus, soft mobility, etc.), and where rail-air connections will account for a growing share of the development of Groupe ADP’s hubs.”
It added that airports “will host a diversification of our energy activities and the deployment of new clean energies: biomass, green electricity, sustainable aviation fuels, hydrogen”. They will also “see existing infrastructures densified and the capacities of stations and multimodal hubs extended, using new innovative and environmentally friendly construction methods”.
De Romanet said the new airport model would enable Groupe ADP to return to its pre-crisis financial performance level by 2025.
