Current approaches to the development of airport retail : a sales performance analysis and case study

Abstract

During the 1990s, a number of airports around the United States radically changed the way they managed the retail space in their terminals. Departing from the traditional master concessionaire/operator model, airports began experimenting with branded direct leasing programs and outsourcing to third party developers. Serving over 700 million domestic airline passengers annually, and until recently overlooked by the retail development community at large, the airport network presents a significant market for retail development. We review the issues surrounding airport retail management, the genesis of the branded, mall- style and developer-run programs, and evaluate the relative performance of different management models both quantitatively and qualitatively, based on recent sales data and case studies of a number of airports. Data for this report was collected June/July 2002 in the form of publicly available data from industry trade groups and journals, interviews with members of airport business offices, developers active in airport retail, and firms providing concessionaire service to airports.