Airports association ACI Europe has themed its annual trading conference “Challenging the traditional business model” and will examine that model through a series of five working sessions in Milan from 21-23 April.

This 24th event (formerly called the Airport Trading Conference, and now renamed Airport Commercial & Retail Conference & Exhibition) will initially take the suppliers’ point of view by asking global brands: if they had free reign to build an airport shopping experience, what would it be like?

It will then look at the competition for space and find out whether there is enough of a ‘sense of adventure’ in the airport approach to commercial and retail planning. ACI says: “Are conditions unnecessarily bureaucratic and restrictive or is there real scope for change?”

Further sessions will explore why more than half of passengers still don’t buy at airport stores and what can be done to change that; ways to maximise under-utilised, high-yield non-aeronautical revenues; and the bridge between technology, airports and shopping to create what ACI calls “a utopian airport journey.”

Speakers have not yet been announced.