Three of the prominent Tuesday sessions at the ARN 2016 Revenue Conference & Exhibition will examine how airport concessions are likely to evolve in the future.
Following a day of educational sessions that drill down into the challenges of operating in an airport environment, the Tuesday sessions seek to shed some light on what’s next for airport concessions.
A Food Trends panel will spotlight some of the hottest trends on the “street,” and examine how those trends might be adapted to airport concessions. Annika Stensson, director of research communications for the National Restaurant Association, will launch the session by sharing some of the data her organization has gathered on restaurant trends nationwide.
“I think the days of simple menu descriptions are numbered, as consumers increasingly want to know more about the food they choose to eat,” Stensson says. “This could be a challenge on limited menu board space, but it very much resonates to offer as much information as possible and be transparent.”
Two highly regarded restaurant consultants – Chris Tripoli, president of A’La Carte Foodservice Consulting, and Michael Whiteman, president of Baum and Whiteman Restaurant Consulting, will share their thoughts on what’s next for restaurants and how those trends might be adapted into airport concessions.
A session titled “Maximizing Revenue Potential” will feature a diverse group of speakers who will address key ways airports and concessionaires can assess and expand their revenue growth opportunities.
The first presentation, from James Ingram, director of Switzerland-based DKMA, will focus on quantifying everything from hard sales data to more intangible knowledge, such as customer satisfaction and propensity to purchase.
“Through our research done at airports all over the world, we were able to show that on average, those passengers who were most satisfied with the commercial experience at the airport spend 10 percent more time at the airport, are twice as likely to shop, spend seven percent more on duty paid and 10 percent more on duty free than other passengers,” notes Ingram.
Mark Gallagher, vice president of business management, Americas, for SITA, will highlight key success factors of a digital transformation of airports.
ARN’s third concessions-centric panel on Tuesday will delve into the ongoing evolution of retail. From digital interactions to shopper-tainment, the retail world on the “street” is rapidly changing. At the same time, the airport duty-free sector is evolving in North America with expanded influence from global operators.
In this session, three global retail executives – Alex Avery, director of airports, travel and commercial spaces division, Pragma Consulting; Melvin Broekaart, managing director of AirCommerce; John Nevin, principal and travel strategy consultant at L.E.K. Consulting – will examine how both duty free and specialty retail can embrace the latest trends to better meet the expectations of the traveling public.
Broekaart, a self-described “evangelist of travel retail’s uniqueness as the ultimate channel for sales and brand building,” says airports may have an edge when it comes to building brands, and brand owners are beginning to recognize that. He says, “The captive audience at airports is looking for ways to experience products – to touch, taste and try in ways impossible for e-commerce and unreachable for downtown retailers.”
