Situation
Many airports work systematically to improve the passenger experience to strengthen both satisfaction and commercial performance. A major international airport was looking to improve the passenger experience in an older terminal area. With the ambition of creating a more welcoming and engaging atmosphere, a range of wall decorations were installed. At the same time, a need arose to assess whether the initiative actually improved the passenger experience.
Complication
When measuring the impact of initiatives like these, airports face methodological challenges. If passengers are asked directly about new initiatives, their responses may easily be biased, making it difficult to assess whether the changes have actually improved the overall experience. At the same time, it is difficult to establish a meaningful baseline for comparison once initiatives have already been implemented, and when conditions in the terminals vary across locations and over time. A different method was therefore needed to provide a more objective understanding of the impact of the wall decorations on the passenger experience.
Recommendation
Epinion used the airport’s existing tracking data as a starting point and applied advanced statistical analysis to assess the effect of the new wall decorations. The Causal Impact method made it possible to estimate what relevant KPIs would have looked like without the wall decorations, thereby providing a basis for assessing the actual effect. The analysis showed a positive effect on selected passenger experience KPIs and a neutral effect on the remaining KPIs. On that basis, Epinion recommended maintaining and further developing the concept.
