NORTH AMERICA. A group of retail and food & beverage concessionaires have teamed up to create a new organisation, the Airport Restaurant & Retail Association (ARRA). It aims to represent all sizes and categories of concessionaires across the airports industry.
Speaking to The Moodie Davitt Report this week, ARRA board members said the association’s mission is to “educate the airport community on fundamental policy decision-making that has a collective impact on restaurant and retail members”.
Founded in December, the association has already attracted around 25 members, large and small, from across the regional concessions business, with many more expected to join amid “strong interest” from the industry community. ARRA has established an initial budget drawn up by members and will also begin the search for a full-time Executive Director to represent its interests.
In the early stages board members hold bi-weekly conference calls to discuss the association’s priorities, and members plan to gather at key airport and aviation industry events through the year.
“This is exciting and I believe very positive for our industry as we continue to find innovative ways to service the travelling public” – Derryl Benton
Plans include:
- To develop joint public relations initiatives to promote the association to the airport community
- Educate and build membership
- Position the association as a resource to airports on concessions policies
- Focus on how airport concessions policies impact:
- Customer experience
- ACDBE and JV partners
ARRA’s first President is SSP America Executive Vice President Pat Murray. He said: “As the voice of restaurateurs and retailers across the aviation industry, the association’s mission is to ensure an effective dialogue so matters of policy and decision making impacting our members are informed by ARRA’s point of view.”
The Moodie Davitt Report spoke to Murray this week along with other influential figures in the association’s creation, including HMSHost Executive Vice President of Business Development Derryl Benton, Concessions International Senior Managing Partner Kirk Weiss and Crews Managing Partner & President Nick Buford Crews.
Murray said: “A group of us have been working on this for almost 18 months. It started with the view that it was difficult for our interests as retail and food & beverage operators to come to the fore when there are so many other topics out there that affect the airports business. Nearly everyone in the world of airports has some sort of association to represent their common interests. It made sense for us to create an association that gives us that voice.”
He added: “The purpose of an association is to elevate that conversion in the industry and have the topics discussed – because often they are not and decisions are made without the full information.
“The topics are many, from security to sustainability to infrastructure and building new real estate. We will formulate the topics that should lead our agenda in the coming months.
“People who run airports for the most part have not got a retail or restaurant background. There are some things specific to airports that are close to what we do and that we know about. We will be cautious about what we raise; the topics are about win-wins, not about us complaining how difficult doing business is. Our partners may not realise there are things we do in our business already that can benefit them.”
Benton said: “It is an overdue development. We want to be an asset to our airport partners and an asset to the airport and aviation trade organisations in our industry such as ACI (Airports Council International) or AAAE (American Association of Airport Executives). Within the organisation we are all fierce competitors and will continue to be, but there are times that ARRA can be a voice to speak on the issues at the right time, especially as our industry continues to seek new revenue streams.
“This is exciting and I believe very positive for our industry as we continue to find innovative ways to service the travelling public.”
Crews said: “The membership growth has been very encouraging so far. Some of the larger operators have helped to drive the process at the beginning as they can bring more resources into play. But all the smaller companies, like ours, have come in quickly and it has been positive. We will continue to have more conversations with other operators in the industry as we all try to serve the public and our airport partners better.”
Asked how ARRA can be a voice for change with airports, Weiss said: “It all comes down to sharing best practices. The concessionaires in the association have experiences from almost all airports right across the country. We see what works in some and does not at others. It’s about sharing what works best to improve everyone’s experience.”
Weiss and Crews highlighted the key role that small and minority-led companies would have in the new association.
Weiss said: “It was surprising but welcome to see the representation of ACBDE businesses and other small businesses make up over two-thirds of the original group.
“The board has both large and small or mid-sized companies on it from the start. We feel we have a strong voice. There is a commonality of themes across all players – rising costs from labour to construction and other downward pressures.”
The need for a new association: the ARRA view
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Crews added: “From the beginning even the board structure was about combining the small and large companies. We all compete for RFPs but beyond that we are aligned with each other and with the airports to drive growth for the business and elevate our guests’ experiences.”
The initial board includes the following members:
Pat Murray, SSP (President)
Andy Weddig, Paradies Lagardère (Secretary)
Bryan Loden, HMSHost (Treasurer)
Bill Casey, Areas
Judy Byrd, Byrd Retail Group
Richard Ayson, Delaware North
Nick Crews, Crews of California
Winston Burns, Newburns Management Group
George Tinsley, Tinsley Family Concessions
Mike Mullaney, Hudson Group
Kirk Weiss, Concessions International
A set of formal goals for the association has yet to be decided, though board members said that at this point they were not considering running conferences or exhibitions, or having a lobbying function as, for example, duty free association IAADFS has long had.
Benton said: “There is limited membership overlap with IAADFS, which represents duty free operators, and we are not planning any exhibition. The goal is to find synergy around common interest issues that we as retail and F&B operators are experiencing – and that what we do is beneficial to our airport partners and the industry at large.”
Murray said: “The focus first is on our airport partners and the people and companies that play into that. Many of the topics that are important to us are important to them too. We may in future want to talk to regulators but only in the sense that it helps us support our airport partners.”
On the eventual scope of the association, Murray added: “There are a lot of international companies who want to come to North America – in a perfect world we’d like to involve them in the association too.
“It has been founded by companies and individuals from North America, but we did not do that to exclude anyone, it was just because the founding members were from here and it was practical. There is so much going on in the world outside. The topics are often the same everywhere. If we succeed, others might want to reach out and join us.”
