GERMANY/INTERNATIONAL. Travel retailer Gebr. Heinemann’s vision hub GHARAGE has released the second edition of its report series, examining shifting traveller preferences and what they mean for the future of airports.
Titled Intelligent Airports: From Friction to Flow, the report explores what Gebr. Heinemann describes as “a realistic but aspirational tech-enhanced vision for airports”.
Combining qualitative, quantitative and cultural insights, the report shows how an end-to-end airport journey might be designed in the future to feel seamless, connected, intuitive, contextual – and still somehow human.
The topic is approached via three key themes: ‘Getting the basics right’, ‘Intuiting needs and desires’ and ‘Elevated experiences’.
Three key report takeaways
- Get the basics right: Travellers are frustrated by long waits, queues and necessary airport checkpoints, especially at the start and end of their journey. Examples include luggage, customs, security and immigration. Intelligent use of data, automation and connectivity is needed to facilitate an efficient, integrated and responsive ecosystem to enhance passenger happiness.
- Holding ambivalence between high and low tech: We are living through an innovation super cycle. Tech increasingly permeates and facilitates every aspect of our lives. Amid a blurred future of humans and machines, travellers desire technologies that are both simple and sophisticated, where human connections can co-exist with AI efficiency, and ambient technologies that integrate seamlessly into the journey.
- Intuit passenger desires for elevated experiences: The wait for a flight can be broken by allowing for serendipity, discovery and surprise. The introduction of multi-platform concepts facilitated by tech can provide travellers with communal and immersive pre-flight activities, elevating their overall experience at airports. The boundaries between the digital and physical get blurred.
The report takes an in-depth look into each of these topics and develops six strategic opportunities for testing the new concepts, so emerging technologies can be better integrated into the end-to-end airport experience.
GHARAGE Head of Strategic Foresight and Innovation Amanda Mai Khuong-Duc said, “Airports are spaces of contradictions: The best airport experience isn’t about choosing between high-tech and low-tech, but embracing their co-existence. As technology deeply integrates into every aspect of our lives, travellers expect seamless, valuable tech experiences.
“The key lies in strategically leveraging technology to enhance the journey by getting the basics right, while ensuring that unique human capabilities are intentionally applied where they matter most.”
You can download the full report via this link.
The first GHARAGE report in this series, Airport Futures: from Function to Feeling, looked at how traveller feel impacts their satisfaction and behaviour at the airport. Download it via our article here. ✈
