Enhancing the consumer experience
DAY 2
Three experts from the worlds of food & beverage, hospitality and advertising took part in a fascinating session that explored ways to enhance the consumer experience.
SSP America Executive Vice President Pat Murray assessed the growing role of food & beverage in achieving this ambition, and ultimately increasing revenue. Has anything in the airport food & beverage sector really changed over the last years?
The answer was an emphatic yes, Murray claimed. He said that a range of external factors has helped, such as passenger growth, new and improved airports, security changes and airline consolidation.
Pat Murray: “We can reflect a ‘taste of place’, elevate the experience and comfort the travellers”
But the real change has come from within. “Airport food & beverage has got a whole lot better,” he said. It has evolved from basic and boring to cool.
Customers have demanded more range, choices, a better quality of service and a ‘taste of place’. Food has in recent years become a major part of our popular culture. Chefs have become household names, rock star-like, while reality food TV is becoming increasingly popular. The design of restaurants has also vastly improved, and strong art and architectural components make them more attractive to passengers, Murray said.
“Good food & beverage can make the overall experience a whole lot better for passengers,” he concluded. “We can reflect a ‘taste of place’, elevate the experience and comfort the travellers. This all means overall spend goes up. “The airport food & beverage sector has indeed changed a lot and will continue to do so.”
“Food is the new retail,” says Murray
Food is a part of our culture
And became a ‘glocal’ phenomenon
Improvements have had a positive financial impact
Airport food & beverage has evolved from basic and boring to cool
Service and experience remains key
Fresh from the Trinity Challenge earlier in the day, CapsuleTransit CEO & Co-founder Ryan Loo looked at the future of airport accommodation. He asked delegates to imagine they were a famous architect and had won a contract at an airport with 60 million passengers per annum. How would they manage accommodation?
Perhaps they might create a hotel. If 1% of those travellers needed accommodation, that would require 1,643 rooms. So the traditional hotel would be bigger than the airport. “If you built this then I guarantee you would be famous for the wrong reason,” Loo said to laughter.
So rather than build a large hotel next to the airport, why not integrate sleeping facilities within the airport building to maximise the area covered?
That’s exactly what CapsuleTransit’s disruptive model does, and it is firmly in line with the needs and values of millions of transit travellers, he claimed.
Ryan Loo: “Join us in reimagining the future of airport transit”
Loo explained that CapsuleTransit emphasised tailoring the experience to the needs of travellers by offering stays in blocks of time of three, six and 12 hours. Booking and check-in can be conducted using a smartphone, with passengers using their mobile phone to unlock the door after receiving an authentication code.
At Kuala Lumpur International Airport 2 (KLIA2), weary travellers are able to use multiple sleeping areas and ‘chill-out’ zones. The KLIA2 operation now embraces 9,500sq ft of landside space, containing 204 ‘capsule pods’, ranging in size from single occupancy up to units suitable for small groups of friends or family.
As revealed in the latest issue of The Moodie Davitt eZine, CapsuleTransit plans to expand the mini-hotel venture across Southeast Asian airports and perhaps beyond. Loo said the company was delivering an efficient accommodation network.
“Importantly we will improve the airport vision as sleeping on airport benches will be a thing of the past,” Loo concluded. “Join us in reimagining the future of airport transit.”
What is the future of airport accommodation?
A traditional hotel next to the airport is no longer viable
Instead, sleeping facilities should be integrated within the airport
This saves space and spreads out rooms
Many types of passenger would use a capsule hotel
Crucially, stays are offered in blocks of time of three, six and 12 hours
CapsuleTransit offers three types of room to suit different needs
The concept is already a big hit at Kuala Lumpur International Airport 2
oOh! Media Chief Commercial & Product Officer Robbie Dery then delivered a powerful take on the role and future of airport advertising from the perspective of the largest out-of-home business across Australia and New Zealand.
He argued that technology developments allow advertisers and, therefore, brands to better connect with consumers, thanks to increasingly sophisticated data. “The digital disruption that has happened in our industry has been enormous and if you don’t run with it, you will be left behind,” he said.
“We knew with the rise of data that we would have to continue to evolve and keep getting smarter,” Dery added.
One way brands have got smarter, he continued, is by changing the way they communicate with customers; they have gone from communicating products to communicating ideas, as personified by Nike’s Dream Crazy campaign featuring [American football player] Colin Kaepernick. “Ultimately this allows these brands to connect stronger with their customers and it drives a much stronger loyalty and trust between the brand and consumer, which delivers better revenue over the life cycle of that customer,” Dery said.
To deliver a stronger return on investment for brands, airport advertisers should look to use transactional data more than claimed data, he argued. Dery added that oOh! Media has managed to use its transactional database to create transactional data for a number of brands. He said: “Once we know who, we must establish how to keep them engaged.”
The deepest engagement is created by combining content, environment and audience, he concluded.
Getting smarter: Robbie Dery says engagement is created by combining content, environment and audience
Together, the Trinity drives experience
Data gives a better understanding of prime locations
And the type of information customers respond to
Technology developments have led to deeper engagement
Dery concluded by outlining three key principles
Together, these create an “unmissable” experience
The Moodie Davitt eZine
Issue 271 | 19 November 2019
The Moodie Davitt eZine is published 20 times per year by The Moodie Davitt Report (Moodie International Ltd).
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