EVENT NEWS: THE TRINITY FORUM
“ Secondly, is the pressure from the airline industry and growing government economic regulation for airports to contain prices for aeronautical services. The money to operate, maintain and develop the airport has to come from somewhere.”
She noted that non-aeronautical activity – largely driven by retail – now accounts for 43 % or $ 46 billion of global airport revenues per annum, with African, Asia-Pacific and European airports earning around 40 % of their non-aviation related income from shops and F & B outlets.
And, she made it clear that ACI opposes any regulation that stifles the flexibilty of airports to be commercially minded and responsive to their customers, arguing that this would, in turn, damage regional and even national economies.
“ The diversification of revenues improves resiliency and financial viability of airports. This is why ACI is actively working to send the right message to ICAO and national regulators that regulation of nonaeronautical revenues goes against the best interests of the air transport industry,” stated Gittens.
Making his maiden industry speech at the conference, DFS Group’ s chairman and CEO, Philippe Schaus, urged brand owners, retailers and airports to“ aim higher than the High Street and the malls” in the quality of execution and service, noting the“ commoditisation” of shop designs and customers.
“ Even we, as retailers, are becoming commoditised as we climb over one another to sell ourselves as the best operation while often under-serving the customer, when in fact there is no great differentiation between operators,” warned Schaus.
He added:“ The industry needs leadership, refinement, multisensory experiences, creativity and more audacity. Let’ s be obsessed by being different.”
An example of the‘ Trinity’ at work was provided by Heathrow Airport, which in collaboration with retailer World Duty Free Group and three brand providers – Nestlè International Travel Retail, Diageo and P & G Prestige – planned, designed, built and opened a temporary Valentine’ s Day store at the UK gateway.
Their collaboration – which resulted in the creation of the‘ Make it Special on Us’ store in Heathrow’ s Terminal 5 – was the direct result of a challenge issued at last year’ s Trinity Forum to see if it was possible for an airport, retailer and multi-brands to work together in such a way. Roland Stieger( commercial director, Nestlè International Travel Retail); Peter Jacobson( commercial director global travel and Middle East, Diageo); Murat Akyildiz( director global distributor and travel retail, P & G Prestige); Muriel Zingraff-Shariff( retail concessions director, Heathrow Airport Limited); and Eugenio Andrades( chief commercial officer, World Duty Free Group) all admitted that working together on a project for the first time that gave joint exposure to each brand was not an easy task.
It involved over 200 emails and 40 hours of meetings and calls between the different stakeholders, 80 man-hours of training and 10 different briefs for creative output just to make it happen.
And the project came at quite a price for the participants – around € 290,000, Heathrow stumping up € 145,000 and the others around € 40,000 each.
So what did they learn from the project they nicknamed‘ Trinity Plus’ and, would they do it again? Zingraff-Shariff said:“ I think it is an experiment we could look to repeat if the circumstances were right.
“ This double Trinity event has proven to be the catalyst to transforming Heathrow from being a host for retail activity to a initiator of commercial opportunities in our own right.
“ Through this initiative, we were able to use our physical terminal space, our in-house promotional teams and marketing resources as the platform for the creation of a brand new passenger experience.”
AIRPORT WORLD / FEBRUARY-MARCH 2013 17