Airport Experience® News - ACDBE 2023

DIREC TOR’ S CHA IR

Another thing we’ve done very differently is we brought the advertising that we sell in the airport in-house. We’ve been able to almost triple our revenue. The companies that sell advertising in airports do a great job with national brands, but during COVID we pivoted to a focus on local. We’re using a local company called Fuse Advancement. They’ve attracted local car dealerships, local restaurants, local agencies. It has started to create such a buzz that now we’ve got some national brands. We started the program almost two years ago and just this last January, we passed the $2.2 million mark – before (the new contract) our highest [month] was around $500,000. With those partnerships we’ve done experiences. For example, one of our advertisers is Porsche of Ontario. We took one of our hangars and turned it into a Porsche experience. We used the hangar that where they filmed [the movie] Ford vs. Ferrari. That’s the kind of thing we do to be innovative. We’re lucky here that everybody’s been open to it. For me, I believe we’re just barely scratching the surface.

WARD: How many people are taking advantage of ONTPlus, and do you see an impact in your concessions revenue? ELKADI: We launched it in December and we haven’t started to promote it yet. We’re averaging about 3,400 people a month that use it. We haven’t seen a huge impact from a revenue perspective yet, but it’s more about the overall experience we can offer.

Below: Brewery X has a direct lease with ONT. The two entities will split both expenses and profits once the location opens later this year.

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