Gittens: ‘Personas are much more valuable than a simple static ‘snapshot’ profile’.

Airports Council International (ACI) World will present details of a new way to profile passengers in order to deliver greater non-aeronautical revenue at the Trinity Forum which kicks off tonight with an opening cocktail in Mumbai.

To coincide with the event, jointly held by ACI World, ACI Asia-Pacific and The Moodie Davitt Report, ACI World has launched a new guide, ACI Passenger Personas: A New Approach to Passenger Profiling. The publication is designed to support airports in developing a better appreciation of the needs of the traveller, and in turn help raise non-aeronautical revenue.

“For the airport industry, a deeper understanding of the behaviour and needs of the passenger is vital to achieving higher levels of customer service and developing efficiencies in airport operations,” says Angela Gittens, Director General, ACI World. “This understanding also has vital potential for increasing non-aeronautical revenue performance.”

WHAT IS A PERSONA?

According to ACI World “a persona is a semi-fictional way to model, summarise and communicate research undertaken on airport passengers”. The association has developed six key personas based on Airports Service Quality (ASQ) 2015 passenger data gathered from over 550,000 travellers and 300 airports worldwide.

The six personas represent key profile groups that allow airports to create different customer experiences to meet their specific needs. “The research methodology behind the guide represents a significant advance on the traditional approach to passenger profiling… that reflects passenger behaviour,” claims ACI World.

Gittens adds: “Each persona provides the airport not only with a more detailed understanding of the passenger’s needs, preferences and behaviour, but also gives guidance on how those parameters are evolving, creating a series of portraits that are unique to that airport. As such, the personas are much more valuable than a simple static ‘snapshot’ profile and will actually evolve.”

The guide is free for all ASQ member airports and can be received by request from this email: [email protected].