The Trinity Forum: Meeting Consumer Needs
Coming together to meet new consumer needs
An enhanced and rethought approach to the consumer, whose ultimate satisfaction lies at the core of all Trinity collaboration, is key to our industry’s revival and accelerated growth. That was the key message from a day one panel comprising a mix of heavyweight speakers from various industry stakeholders.
These included Airport Authority Hong Kong Executive Director Commercial Cissy Chan, Ant Group Greater China International Business General Manager Venetia Lee, Hylink Group Managing Partner Humphrey Ho and L’Oréal Travel Retail Asia Pacific Managing Director Tao Zhang.
Ho presented selected findings from Hylink’s latest detailed study on Chinese Gen Z and Millennial consumer spending habits – part of a series produced in association with The Moodie Davitt Report as part of a wider strategic alliance. Click here for more on that alliance.
Humphrey Ho: Connecting Gen Z and Millennials to premium, personalised and digital experiences
Each of these generations – which are critical to the future of our sector – spend arond 60% of their travel budget on shopping and the remaining 40% on destination purchases. Ho made the point that that travel is no longer seen as a luxury, with the majority of Gen Z and Millennial travellers taking around two to three casual leisure trips annually.
Notably, the average per capita transaction in 2023 for High Net Worth (HNW) shoppers from both generations was RMB33,957 (US$4,647), with 30.9% spent on fashion & accessories.
Ho highlighted the importance of integrating premium, digitalised and personalised experiences to captivate Gen Z and Millennial shoppers.
He highlighted travel retail as a trial channel and encouraged brands and retailers to engage consumers early on in their journey. He said connecting to travellers through the wider travel & tourism ecosystem will allow travel retail to drive customer loyalty in a meaningful way.
Cissy Chan: F&B and luxury are among the key segments that have evolved rapidly at airports
The panel discussed how the Trinity can evolve to attract Gen Z and Millennial consumers and how their demands have changed since the pandemic. Key themes included digitalisation, customer engagement, experiences, education and entertainment.
According to Cissy Chan, among the big developments is the growing important of F&B and luxury at airports. “The good news is that passengers are continuing to spend in airports,” she said. “Our borders may have reopened later, but the spend is ahead compared to pre-pandemic times. The message is clear, travellers are spending but two major components have changed: F&B and luxury.
“In the last three years, we got into the habit of doing many things online, but food is something you can only enjoy in person. We are also seeing luxury spend increase and some of our luxury brands are performing better than pre-COVID.”
The pandemic has caused several shifts in the behaviour of Millennial and Gen Z Chinese consumers with experience playing a more important role during their travels. “We see that outbound Mainland Chinese travellers are back to 80% of pre-COVID numbers,” added Venetia Lee. “In Hong Kong we are seeing a shift from pure shopping holidays to more of a diverse, experiential type of holiday. Experience travel is becoming more popular.”
Offering the brand perspective, Tao Zhang added: “The biggest shift we’ve seen in the last three years is the rise of the multichannel consumer. They buy offline, online and in department stores with all channels widely available to them. The reason for buying in any particular channel, especially travel retail, is becoming more difficult to differentiate. What’s important is to look at the whole ecosystem. We need to understand consumer behaviours even when they aren’t travelling.”
“We have to come back to the very fundamental purpose of creating real travel retail value,” Zhang added. “Our recent ‘Kiehl’s Loves Hong Kong’ campaign offered Sense of Place, retailtainment, pre-, during and post-trip engagement and multichannel capabilities and is a great example of authentic retail value.”
Venetia Lee: Experience travel is the new watchword
On reinventing the airport offer to cater to a new generation of travellers, Chan said: “The most important thing is to deliver a pleasant passenger journey even before they travel to the airport. We just rolled out our Luxury Concierge service. Luxury purchases are becoming more important and so this service connects travellers to experienced brand representatives on WeChat, WhatsApp or video call so they can communicate and reserve their favourite items even before setting foot in the airport.”
In this new landscape, addressing how can the Trinity better work to create the all-important emotional connection with travellers, Zhang said: “To deliver memorable experiences and to create emotional connections, we need space to offer a full range or services and deliver a complete brand expression. We can sometimes be so transactional in airports. We need to change that thinking.”
Tao Zhang: Move the dial from the transactional to the experiential in the travel space
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The Moodie Davitt eZine
Issue 329 | 22 November 2023
The Moodie Davitt eZine is published 14 times per year by The Moodie Davitt Report (Moodie International Ltd). © All material is copyright and cannot be reproduced without the permission of the Publisher. To find out more visit www.moodiedavittreport.com and to subscribe, please e-mail kristyn@moodiedavittreport.com