The Future Travel Experience (FTE) World Airport Retailing Summit has announced a new advisory board and a bolstered line-up of heavyweight speakers for the inaugural event, which is taking place from 7-9 June at The Royal Dublin Society.

The summit aims to drive disruption in airport commercial approaches by bringing together representatives from airports around the world, and their partners, to share best practice, new ideas and insider knowledge.

On the conception of the event, Daniel Coleman, Founder & CEO, FTE said: “It has been on my mind since we launched FTE Ancillary back in 2017, which we developed to help airlines create more revenue at every point of the passenger journey through digital innovation.

“FTE has always believed a more collaborative approach going forward between airlines, airports, concessionaires and brands will see everybody benefit in the long-term.

“By adding a dedicated Airport Retailing Forum to the proposition in Dublin we will, for the first time, be able to bring together under one roof everybody in air transport focused on commercial success to explore dynamic new approaches, and forge important new working relationships, which is an incredibly powerful proposition.”

NEW ADVISORY BOARD
At the beginning of the year, the event organisers assembled a brand new seven-strong advisory board which has played a pivotal role in shaping the agenda for the summit.

The members are: Dr Patrick Bohl, Head of Retail and Property Management at Budapest Airport and Chair of the Central & Eastern European Travel Retail Association; Fraser Brown, Retail & Property Director at Heathrow Airport; Jayne Wear, Head of Commercial Products & Transport at Auckland Airport; Ersin Inankul, Chief Digital & Commercial Officer at İGA İstanbul Airport; Sammy Patel, Vice President Commercial at Vantage Airport Group; Martin Jones, CEO at MAG USA and MAGO; and Philipp Ahrens, Senior Vice President Center Management, Vienna Airport.

The main theme for the event, which is co-located with the FTE EMEA and FTE Ancillary shows, is on scaling innovation by highlighting ways to take a good idea and make it work across multiple touchpoints within an airport, an airline network, and across the whole travel chain.

The show has already attracted progressive airport commercial leads, from Sydney Airport to Isavia, looking to re-define their commercial strategies.

There are over 100 speakers taking to the stage, including senior commercial executives from Heathrow, Wizz Air, Istanbul Airport, Munich Airport, Avinor, Gatwick, Fraport, Manchester Airports Group, Dublin Airport, Hamad International Airport, Urban-Air Port, Swedavia, CPI and Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield and easyJet.

In addition, there are more than 50 exhibitors to discover as well as social events for networking, including a welcome drinks reception at the BrewDog Outpost Dublin and the closing party at the Guinness Storehouse. Attendees can schedule meetings via the app.

A new accolade, the FTE World Airport Retailing Award, will be announced at the FTE Awards Ceremony. The new category recognises ‘the most pioneering airport that has continually embraced technology to shape its airport retail proposition and drive commercial innovation’.

Dublin Airport is the headline partner and will be offering guided tours of its retail and F&B locations during the show.

EXPLORING BOLD NEW APPROACHES   
FTE World Airport Retailing Summit will provide an opportunity to learn about the challenges others have faced, and how to overcome them.

“Before the pandemic everyone agreed that a more collaborative retailing approach between airlines, airports, concessionaires and brands could create more revenues for everyone to share in, and new business models and approaches needed to be forged, but the industry was making money so there wasn’t a great motivation to crack the code on that opportunity,” said Coleman.

“Clearly the pandemic has changed all that and the industry is now coming out of survival mode and is exploring bold new approaches to ensure optimised commercial performance across the board.

“I think it’s fair to say that airport retailing models were already under huge pressure before the pandemic, and the sector certainly now needs to push through an array of necessary disruptive new approaches with digital at their heart.”

The summit will highlight approaches to airport retailing that are under pressure to evolve.

“One enlightened industry exec told me ‘the building is on fire’, which I thought was a great analogy for the state of the business,” said Coleman. “We are really going to dig into the topics that will help the industry make the right choices going forward.”

The breadth of issues under the microscope ranges from understanding demographics to data utilisation, making digital and experiential work alongside physical, as well as cryptos, NFTs and metaverses.

“All voices will be equal,” said Coleman. “These will be open, and challenging dialogues, but that is exactly what we need right now and we are confident the show will help drive seismic changes, and many new working partnerships, in the commercial space for our sector.”

One registration provides attendees with access to all three co-located shows – FTE EMEA, FTE Ancillary & FTE World Airport Retailing Summit 2022.