London Heathrow Airport (LHR) is keen to ensure all passengers can benefit from digital wallet payment services such as WeChat Pay and Alipay in stores across its terminals in the future.

In an exclusive interview with TRBusiness, LHR Retail & Service Proposition Director Chris Annetts says while mobile payment mechanisms have been implemented by some vendors, there remains scope to improve the infrastructure.

Discussing opportunities to raise incremental spending levels, Annetts says there are a number of methods LHR employs to better engage with the likes of Chinese passengers, including via social media platforms such as WeChat and Weibo.

BROADENING FULFILMENT

“We’ve created our own Heathrow presence on those platforms and are making some good headway, but it’s fair to say we’re still learning all the time around what works, what people want to do, and what triggers interest, linking that with WeChat Pay and Alipay.

“Our ambition will be to try to make sure everyone at the airport can accept them – at the moment they don’t all do that. Alipay is accepted by several luxury brands, Harrods and World Duty Free. WeChat Pay is more limited at Harrods and World Duty Free are trialling it.”

One key opportunity existing in the future is the potential to curate new brands using the Heathrow Boutique website to offer passengers a greater assortment of brands that are otherwise unavailable today.

“As all airports, we are constrained for space; you think of other iconic brands that we don’t have, if we could create those through the Heathrow Boutique site we would be able to offer them different options in terms of fulfilment, whether that be collect at the airport or home delivery,” continues Annetts. “That is quite an exciting opportunity for us, not only for Chinese, but all passenger groups.”

‘ASPIRATIONAL, YET AFFORDABLE LUXURY’

With the rise of second tier Chinese cities slowly democratising air travel in larger parts of China, Heathrow – like other hubs – face different passenger demands in terms of language and spending power. 

The recent addition of a new service to Shenzhen, a key transport corridor linking Hong-Kong to mainland China, is designed to open up more trade with China.

In fact, LHR has more than doubled its existing connections to China from five at the beginning of this year to 11, including services to Hong Kong, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Qingdao, Chongqing, Wuhan, Sanya, Changsa and the aforementioned Shenzhen.

“Interestingly, a couple of the new flights we’ve got are from what I guess you would call second tier cities where spend levels may not be as high, but they are still materially stronger than our average and actually the passengers at this point in time still seem very interested In best-selling products or brands, but just buy a bit less,” said Annetts.

“I think the work we’ve done to make sure we’ve got a lot of the premium luxury brands and trying to have them represented across all the terminals has worked really well for the last few years and I think it will serve us well going forwards.”

Sandwiched either side of the opening of Dufry’s ‘New Generation’ walkthrough at Terminal 3 in September was an appearance for Louis Vuitton at Terminal 4 in July – its third unit following fixtures at Terminal 5 and Terminal 3 – and the entrance of Italian luxury fashion house Fendi, also at Terminal 4.

Annetts says the Louis Vuitton pop-up has traded exceptionally well, leading to the opening of a permanent unit for the brand last month.

Asked by TRBusiness if LHR will look to reassess its mix in the coming years and potentially steer away from pure luxury towards more aspirational brands, Annetts said: “I think there will always be a role for pure luxury. We’ve tried over the years to have more accessible luxury, like Paul Smith and Ted Baker, even Hugo Boss. Brands like that give us that next tier that actually are still aspirational for many, but much more affordable. That is something we’ve already done and continue to do.”

SPECIAL ASSISTANCE APP

On a separate but nonetheless important note, LHR today introduces a new app to aid the 6,000 visually impaired passengers that travel through its terminals each year.

Part of a £23m ($29m) injection into special assistance services with partner OmniServ, the free-to-use Aira app enables users to call for personalised assistance during the travel journey.

Trained professionals are on hand to guide passengers through the terminals, including providing routes to retail & F&B outlets and other facilities. The app also features live travel information.

According to an investor forecast in June, LHR is targeting a 3.1% rise in retail income per passenger this year to £8.71.  For a more detailed analysis of LHR’s commercial developments, see the August issue of TRBusiness.

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