Airport Experience® News - 20 Years of the AX Conference

magazines, books and newspapers, and another 25% were in tobacco products. “It is just remarkable to me that this model, the convenience model, has just been able to evolve and change over the years to not only survive but to thrive,” Quinn says. Nicole Burns, regional vice president, retail operations, Paradies Lagardère , started out as a buyer, so she knows firsthand how traveler demands in retail have shifted. In the early to mid-2000s there was a heavy focus on periodicals in travel convenience stores, but their popularity began to wane with the advent of electronic readers and connectivity onboard airplanes. Once connected, people could work or play on their electronic devices, thus lessening the need for reading materials. Burns has also seen a marked shift on the packaged food side of the business. “Customers are much more educated and much more aware of what they’re eating,” she says. “They have higher expectations for quality of food, for things that are dairy free, non-GMO…. We’re always going to sell king-sized peanut M&M’s, but we’ve definitely seen a shift with customers wanting and expecting more from us as a retailer on what the assortment looks like.”

Grzechowiak, for example, says Delaware North has partnered with the Culinary Institute of America to create opportunities for airport chefs to partner with more senior chefs throughout the company’s broad portfolio of airport and non-airport restaurants. She also notes the celebrity chef momentum. “It started with the Wolfgang Pucks of the world, but now we’re seeing it” on a much broader basis, she says. “We’re also seeing upper echelon chefs who historically had full-service restaurants [begin to] see the residual income that lives within the world of licensed concepts. And they are keenly interested in QSR concepts.” Retail Priorities Shift As airport F&B has reinvented itself multiple times over the past 20 years, retail has gone through its own evolution as passenger wants and needs have changed. Brian Quinn, chief operating officer - retail, North America, Avolta , the parent company to Hudson and HMSHost , says the airport retail model, especially the category now called “travel essentials”, has proven to be “exceptionally resilient.” When he started at Hudson more than 30 years ago, about 50% of sales were in

Above: Partnering with local brand concepts, such as this Hip & Humble store operated by Paradies Lagardère at Salt Lake City International, has been on trend for well over a decade.

Above: Quality and selection expectations in travel essentials retail have ratcheted up over the past two decades, says Nicole Burns of Paradies Lagardère.

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AX NEWS JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2024