Investigating travelers’ multi-impulse buying behavior in airport duty-free shopping for Chinese traveler: Intrinsic and extrinsic motivations

Airport duty-free shopping is becoming the most important source of revenue and profit. As airports provide a unique retailing environment that differs from the day-to-day distribution channels, observation of travelers' shopping behavior in airports shows that it is different from that in traditional retail store environments. Duty-free retailers at airports must recognize this specific shopping behavior to maximize their sales performance. We examine the relationship between two different types of impulse buying behaviors: cognitive and affective. We also study travelers' satisfaction/loyalty in the context of airport duty-free shopping using two moderators of this relationship: intrinsic and extrinsic motivations. Data were collected from outbound Chinese travelers, who represent the largest proportion of travelers worldwide, to identify implications for airport duty-free retailers. This study found a positive relationship between affective impulse buying behavior and travelers' satisfaction, an aspect that also generates loyalty in the context of airport duty-free shopping. Furthermore, travelers' extrinsic motivations moderate the negative relationship between affective impulse buying behavior and travelers' satisfaction. This study provides insights that airport duty-free retailers can utilize to motivate travelers’ consumption and enhance their satisfaction in duty-free shopping, thereby increasing consumer loyalty.     

Spillover effects of the development constraints in London Heathrow Airport

In this article we assess the growth impact of London Heathrow’s development constraints on other airports in the UK. To test the relationship we use a two-stage methodology yielding an estimate of a congestion spillover effect. Our data are passenger traffic from 1990 to 2012 containing both intercontinental and European air traffic. For intercontinental air traffic, our results show high congestion spillover effect between Heathrow and Gatwick airports, and significant but lesser effect to Stansted airport. We also find significant congestion spillover effects from Heathrow to the spatially more distant Manchester and Birmingham airports, showing the extensive spatial impact of Heathrow’s development constraints. For European air traffic, controlling for low-cost air carrier growth, only two airports show significant congestion spillover effects: Gatwick and London City Airports. Illustrating that low-cost carriers do not operate from Heathrow, so its limitations cannot affect the predominant low-cost air traffic in other airports. The novel methodology we present in this paper can be applied to congestion research in general to assess regional and modal spills within networks.     

An examination of the effects of ride-hailing services on airport parking demand

The emergence of ride-hailing services offered by the Transportation Network Companies (TNCs) globally are substantially affecting how we travel by car, and as such, use parking facilities. Airport parking, which is a substantial source of revenue for the airports, is no different and anecdotal evidence suggest a reduction in parking revenue in airports in recent years as a result of the popularity of ride-hailing services. This research investigates the effects of the entry of ride-hailing services on airport parking patronage using three large airports (John F Kennedy International, Newark Liberty International and LaGuardia) in the US as a case study. Intervention analysis technique was used on time-series monthly parking data at these airports, controlling for passenger numbers. Results indicate there was a statistically significant reduction in the numbers of cars parked at all three airports since the introduction of ride-hailing services, confirming the anecdotal evidence. Findings have implications not only for airport business and revenue models, but also for wider effects of ride-hailing and automation.     

Health screening strategies for international air travelers during an epidemic or pandemic

Air travelers can carry an infectious disease's pathogenic microorganism in their bodies and spread the disease from one country to another in a few days. To delay the spread, health screening stations may be set up at airport terminals to screen travelers. This research tested three different health screening strategies, each with a different combination of screening stations at trip origins, destinations and connecting airports. Discrete event simulations were performed, based on the 2014 to 2016 Ebola virus epidemic, with special focus on travelers from the West African countries traveling to the United States, including travelers who transferred flights at airports in European Union member states. The effectiveness of the screening strategies was analyzed in terms of correct detection, missed detection and false alarm rate. The results showed that exit screening at trip origins brought big improvements in the performance measurements compared to no screening. However, additional screening at the destinations and connecting airports contributed marginal benefits.     

UK airport employee car parking: The role of a charge?

Airports employ significant numbers of workers who favour using the private car for the journey to work because of the location of many facilities and the times they need to travel. At the same time official policies for congestion and environmental reasons seek to limit car use. This can pose parking problems for the airports. This note looks at some of the particular issues confronting UK airport management when trying to conform to official policies while at the same time meeting the needs of their workers and the role charging may play in the solution.     

Modelling the preference for business charter in the cross-strait market

This paper aims at investigating business travelers' choice behavior between business charter (BC) and the business class of commercial airlines in the cross-strait market. This study applies the stated preference method and sets five scenarios with the combination of various levels of fares, waiting time, privacy and expedient clearance services and inflight communication equipment. Data were collected by purposive sampling and interviewing business travelers near the VIP centers, departure lounges, and the baggage claim areas of Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport. A sample with 420 business travelers from Taipei to Shanghai was collected. Then, the binary logit model was employed to analyze how service attributes influence Taiwanese business travelers' choice behavior between BC and business class. Estimation results indicate that fare is the most important factor. Other factors such as gender, seniority, and the number of business trips during the previous year remain significant on the probabilities of choosing BC. Additionally, five specific features of BC were set as dummy variables in the model. Those are transfer time saving, travel time controlling, client entertainment, customer visits and international conference attendance. All of them have positive effects on the preference for using BC.     

Effects of parking and cordon charge policies on tourist's modal shift in central business district of Mashhad city,Iran

The second largest holy city of the world, Mashhad, attracts high volumes of tourists and pilgrims every year. Most visitors travel by private car and are a source of considerable funds for the local economy. Among road users, tourists as one of the major traveller categories in Mashhad city behave differently due to the particular trip purpose. The aim of this research is to model tourist's shifting modes of travel behaviour when policy measures, such as the parking and cordon fares, are implemented. The tourists’ preferences were examined using binary logit analysis when different options of travel cost and time scenarios were provided. Results indicate that travel time, parking cost, cordon cost, education level and vehicle price influence tourist's modal choice. In addition, the finding shows that congestion pricing will be more effective than a parking pricing strategy in encouraging switching of modes.     

Attitudes towards transit-oriented development: Resident experiences and professional perspectives

Transit-oriented development (TOD) provides highly efficient access to transit facilities and, when implemented in concert with streetscape changes, improves neighborhood walkability. In some regions, TOD has generated controversy, seen as impinging on the local populations' preferences for single-family housing, as well as the desire of developers to build that category of housing. In New Jersey, however, there has been increased policy support for TOD. The question addressed here is how, if at all, TOD and TOD-proximate residents' perceptions of the benefits and shortcomings of TOD are perceived and addressed by professionals involved with TOD planning and development. A qualitative research approach was used, with focus groups with residents and structured interviews with professionals. A relatively well-fitting correspondence was found: There was broad agreement by residents and professionals on the value of transit and TOD for increased accessibility and walkability. Problems were identified with retail development and traffic problems; the latter expressed as a congestion problem by professionals but as a pedestrian safety problem by residents. This information provides useful insight for planners and developers seeking to deliver TOD designs that match the preferences of residents and potential residents, and for new avenues of research on how best to achieve this.     

Estimation of willingness-to-pay for premium economy class by type of service

This study aims to estimate the willingness-to-pay (WTP) to upgrade from economy to premium economy class by six types of services and to identify the socioeconomic and travel characteristics of international travelers affecting the WTP using the Tobit model assumed to be censored at zero. The results confirm that the travelers' WTP for the premium economy class in the long-haul travel is higher than those in the medium and the short-haul travels. However, the ratio of additional WTP to the economy class fare in the long-haul route is slightly lower than that in the medium-haul route. The results also present that international travelers have the highest WTP for increased seat width in the premium economy class service attribute, followed by increased seat pitch and upgraded in-flight meal service. Finally, the results indicate that the WTP to upgrade to premium economy class are proportional to the age or the income level of travelers. Furthermore, international travel frequency and the experience of premium economy class have a positive impact as well. This research can be a useful resource for analyzing international travelers’ WTP concerning the type of service and this information will be useful to policy makers in their efforts to determine their fare policies and the target audience for marketing premium economy class.     

Car parking management at airports: A special case?

The number of employees who daily commute to an airport represents, on average, one quarter to one half of the daily number of passengers. At UK airports it is rare for employees to pay for their car parking, with most employers absorbing the charges imposed by the airport authority. This paper details the main issues with offering free parking to employees drawing comparisons between a selection of case studies where parking management measures for employees have been introduced, and the airport sector. The paper then reports on a survey and a series of focus groups that were conducted with employees at a large UK airport in order to gauge their attitudes and likely behavioural responses to potential parking management strategies. Key findings are presented to show how airports may be able to learn from the experiences of others in the successful introduction of parking management strategies, but that there are also key barriers that are specific to airports that would need to be overcome.     

A multilayer model to simulate cruising for parking in urban areas

In this paper we propose an assignment model on urban networks to simulate parking choices; this model is able to simulate the impact of cruising for parking on traffic congestion. For simulating parking choice and estimating the impact of cruising on road congestion we propose a multi-layer network supply model, where each layer simulates a trip phase (on-car trip between the origin and destination zone, cruising for parking at destination zone and walking egress trip). In this model the cruising time is explicitly simulated on the network. The proposed model is tested on a trial network and on a real-scale network; numerical tests highlighted that the proposed model is able to simulate user parking choice behaviour and the impact of cruising for parking upon road congestion, particularly when the average parking saturation degrees exceed 0.7.     

Investigating the Impact of SERVQUAL Dimensions on Customer Satisfaction: The Lessons Learnt from Serbian Travel Agencies

Despite the rise of online travel booking services, it seems that traditional travel agencies remain an intractable part in the process of making travel arrangements for most travelers. Nevertheless, the question remains as to what triggers travelers' satisfaction with travel agencies. In order to explore this, we focused on Serbian travel agencies and researched the impact of the five individual SERVQUAL dimensions on travelers' satisfaction. Results revealed that four SERVQUAL dimensions (reliability, responsiveness, empathy and tangibility) had a significant influence on customer satisfaction. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Integrating destination positioning and identity salience to enhance childcare service experiences in family travel: An insight from Macau

Addressing the lack of an integrated view of family travel destination positioning and experience design, this study focuses on examining how a new form of family travel experiences, that is, childcare service experiences available during the hospitality and tourism consumption, combined with destination positioning to trigger travelers' positive perceptions of the overall tourism experiences in Macau. Furthermore, using the lens of identity salience, this study is among the first to investigate how the salience of self- or family-identity changes the impact of childcare service experiences on travelers' destination attitudes. The findings of the two scenario-based experiments suggested that compared to family travel destination positioning, individual characteristics (i.e., identity salience) exerted a significant strengthening effect on the impact of childcare service experiences on family travelers. This study is informative for destination marketers and hospitality and tourism managers and will help them to effectively design tourism experiences that appeal to family travelers.     

Assessment of non-recurrent traffic congestion caused by freeway work zones and its statistical analysis with unobserved heterogeneity

Freeway work zones with patching, paving, lane marking, debris removing, and weeding cause temporary capacity reduction in the freeway and may lead to non-recurrent traffic congestion. Such non-recurrent traffic congestion amounts to 10% of total traffic congestion in the U.S. and 31% in Germany. Non-recurrent traffic congestion has been estimated by using the capacity and the number of closed lanes in work zones and the upstream traffic demand of work zones. However, the number of the closed lanes may be insignificant due to operational strategies such as using the shoulder area and composing additional lanes by temporarily reducing the existing lane width to mitigate traffic congestion. Therefore, the objective of this study is to develop a method to quantify non-recurrent traffic congestion caused by freeway work zones based on traffic flow data and spatio-temporal work zone information. In addition, to demonstrate the efficacy of the developed method, a case study is conducted based on one-year historical traffic data and work zone data on major freeways in Korea. Then, multivariate statistical analysis with unobserved heterogeneity is performed to describe factors of non-recurrent traffic congestion caused by work zone activities. Due to the fact that a work zone project is usually implemented according to schedule, such negative impact as non-recurrent traffic congestion is inevitably produced. Thus, the results can be practical for the performance evaluation of congestion management programs for work zone by quantifying non-recurrent traffic congestion. Additionally, the results from the statistical analysis can be potentially useful in developing a forecasting model for providing travelers with traffic information such as an alternative route to escape non-recurrent traffic congestion by freeway work zones.     

Intermodal integration in air transportation: status quo, motives and future developments

Soaring air traffic, increasing urban expansion and airports operating at full capacity are reasons that have caused a discussion about improvements in airport landside access systems. One approach to better match customer demands and address airport congestion is to facilitate the intermodal integration of airports. Building on a survey on intermodal passenger air transportation, we elaborate on the current and future situation at major airports. Our findings indicate a high modal concentration and dependence on individual access modes. However, while airport managers intend to reduce the share of these modes, they plan to increase that of high-occupancy airport access modes. We analyze the underlying motives that cause airports to extend their connections to surface infrastructure. In a case study, we assess an intermodal best practice solution for the integration of air and rail.     

Estimating the sensitivity of small airport catchments to competition from larger airports: A case study in Indiana

An accurate estimation of airport catchment area enables airlines and airport operators to make informed decisions and to target potential markets precisely. This study uses the state of Indiana as a case study to estimate traffic leakage from the local airport, Indianapolis International Airport (IND), to two large hub airports in Illinois, the neighboring state of Indiana, namely Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD) and Chicago Midway International Airport (MDW). By using a decision making model that considers flying cost and access cost, this study simulates from local passengers' perspective which origin airport delivers the most cost effective flight itinerary. Using the top 20 routes of IND in 2018 as model inputs, the catchment area of two Chicago based airports in Indiana with variable coverage is plotted for different traveling scenarios. The analysis shows that an airport catchment area is sensitive to location, service level and traffic volume of competing airports nearby, as well as purpose of travel (business or leisure), number of travelers in a group (single, couple, family or multiple), length of trip, destination (domestic or international), preference of airlines (network carrier or budget carrier), and frequent flyer program status (premier member or general member). These findings could be valuable to all three aforementioned airports as well as airlines serving these airports when allocating operational and marketing resources. More importantly, this study creates a generic model that could be used by virtually any airport to estimate scenario-based catchment area using readily available itinerary and spatial data without resorting to expensive passenger surveys.     

Minimum delay or maximum efficiency? Rising productivity of available capacity at airports: Review of current practice and future needs

Around the world airports are facing capacity constraints more and more everyday, generally the runway capacities are restricted by governments and airports are unable to accept additional aircrafts. Technological improvements can decrease the necessity of policy limitations in terms of noise and air pollution. Rapidly increasing numbers of traffic developed severe scarce capacity, congestion and delay problems and the capacity that is available, needs to be allocated as efficiently as possible. Airport capacity can be allocated in different ways; administrative capacity management with slot allocation and traffic distribution rules; market-based capacity management with slot auctioning, secondary trading and peak pricing; a combination of both mechanisms; and no regulation mechanism as applied in the USA with the exceptions of busiest airports. The review contains the analysis of current state of practice and the review of relevant research on capacity and slot allocation modelling with policy and demand management perspectives. It targets identification of existing problems, inefficiencies, gaps and requirements in current practice of slot allocation mechanisms, defining options for change in policies to allocate slots more efficiently, transparent and fair by investigating market-based mechanisms. The objective of this paper is to contribute to the ongoing research for improvements to the slot allocation process that can be rationally implemented in practice in order to improve efficiency, fairness and transparency. For that purpose, based on these slot allocation approaches, we provide a critical review of status-quo, literature and current research with demand and congestion management perspectives by considering overall social welfare, airline and airport surplus, passenger welfare and explore hypothetical, computational and practical challenges that have arisen from cross-disciplinary methodologies.     

Hub airport slot Re-allocation and subsidy policy to speed up air traffic recovery amid COVID-19 pandemic --- case on the Chinese airline market

With international air travels largely banned around the world amid the global COVID-19 pandemic, many gateway and hub airports have more ideal slots available for reallocation. Airport traffic recovery replaces airport congestion to become the primary challenge of major airports around the world. With the pandemic well controlled domestically in China, the government liberalizes the hub airport slots for those previously forbidden services to the small/regional airports. This paper thus analytically examines the effect of this slot liberalization. The government subsidy to the small airports has also been considered. It is found that the slot liberalization can speed up airport traffic recovery for both hub and small airports. The hub airport slot liberalization leads to a lower level of minimum subsidy to sustain the survival of the small airports. Given any fixed level of subsidy to the small airport, both the total airport traffic and social welfare would improve with the slot liberalization at the hub airport. When the government can adjust the level of subsidy after liberalizing the hub airport slots, the subsidy could be excessive, if the government emphasizes too much on airport traffic recovery. This would, however, harm the overall social welfare.     

Regional cooperation and the regionalization of air travel in Central New England

The regionalization of air traffic in Central New England since 1995, shifting traffic from Boston to regional airports, has come about as a response to factors unique to that region within the US. However, the results of regional cooperation between airport operators and the concomitant regionalization of air traffic are applicable to any region that is trying to increase metropolitan airport capacity by making greater use of smaller, regional airports. These results include benefits for travelers, “spreading the burden” of airport neighbors, and replicating the costs and benefits of air travel over a greater area.