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Airport ROI is a good metric for airports. But in order to extend the opportunity of engaging with passengers as customers, we must focus on them as part of the metric. In so doing, a new measurement paradigm is needed, one which we call a “Passenger Experience Index” (PEI). This Index considers new opportunities of customer engagement that Social Media and new technologies bring to the equation.
Introducing the Passenger Experience IndexSM
The Passenger Experience Index (PEI) must include many new complex objectives and metrics. The passenger focuses on their entire travel experience, whereas current ASQ surveys only deal with airport physical aspects in airports. This should not be confused with the PEI. If we are looking for new opportunities to increase value to passengers while increasing revenue for the airport, then the PEI is the our focus point.
When the PEI is put into an application framework, it becomes what we call “Destination Marketing”. This is a perfect storm of continuous contact, opt in services, geo-location + itinerary, flight data and retail offers. And the medling of retail brands and services, together with real time opportunity, creates what is often referred to as “Magnetic Marketing”. What is important to airports’ revenue growth is to the combination of two or more airports (O&D) into the passenger equation, providing peer group dynamics (those traveling on the same flight) with the same flights and destination.
Revenue opportunities, such as retail offers, then become extensible from “simple geo-Location based” offers to route and destination specific opportunities. The value of all these components is what comprises the PEI, essentially the value points to the passenger as a customer. This is true engagement beyond simple Social Media metrics, in pure organic terms. If they do not support the PEI then they are not weighted accordingly.
As you can imagine, this metric is all new – social media measurement and technology combined into one. We’re in the process of constructing this Index for release as a Beta program for several airports now.
The next Blog post will introduce the PEI components and their respective domains.