Situation
Non-aeronautical revenue is crucial to an airport’s overall financial health. With up to 80% of airport shopping being impulse-driven, airports need a carefully curated commercial environment and a well-balanced mix of retail, services, and food and beverage. Post-COVID, a European airport saw a substantial decrease in passenger satisfaction with its commercial area. Both retail and food & beverage services are receiving significantly lower scores compared to benchmarking airports, which was a cause for concern.
Complication
While short-term penetration and conversion rates appeared satisfactory, the airport faced a material risk to its future revenue potential. There was a hypothesis that the drop in satisfaction reflected a shift in the passenger mix and their needs. Therefore, the airport urgently needed robust insight into today’s commercial expectations – particularly around food and beverage and retail concepts. Specifically, research was required to identify how the commercial offer could be optimised, and to uncover, prioritise, and validate the strongest concepts to improve customer satisfaction and spend per head.
Recommendation
To understand passenger expectations, identify the drivers of satisfaction and dissatisfaction, assess how well the current offer matched actual passenger preferences, and understand actual behaviour and demand, Epinion conducted on-site research with more than 1,600 passengers. We reviewed the existing commercial set-up and shopping patterns, and tested a mix of local favourites, global brands, and both spontaneous and stated-preference concepts. We then ran an importance analysis, controlling for cannibalisation effects on spend per head – and delivered clear, actionable recommendations to reshape the airport’s commercial area and services, tailored to maximise relevance for each target segment.
