DUBAI — Collinson, a global leader in travel experience and loyalty, today announced the launch of the Collinson Airport Alliance. Bringing together innovators and service providers across the airport ecosystem, including start-ups, scale-ups with established players — the Collinson Airport Alliance aims to kick-start a new era of integrated, seamless, more accessible airport experiences.

“Working with airports globally to manage loyalty, relationships and the traveler experience, we have come to realize that the experience is still too fragmented and disconnected. This increases traveler frustration and dissatisfaction, and impedes growth for airport operators and in-airport businesses,” explains Mignon Buckingham, corporate strategy officer at Collinson.

“The Collinson Airport Alliance aims to change that. We’re transforming how the airport customer ecosystem functions, by connecting different parties with a targeted focus under one alliance with common integration standards and interfaces, to deliver a fundamentally enhanced and integrated experience for travelers.”

The alliance will help airport operators and in-airport businesses to work together to solve the challenges and pain-points of today’s traveler by opening up dialogue between alliance members, standardizing technology sets and harnessing the power of this ecosystem to deliver a better traveler experience.

The alliance is founded by Collinson, whose brands include Priority Pass — the world’s leading airport lounge and experiences program, and Airport Dimensions — the global specialist in designing, building and operating shared-use lounges and airport experiences.

Founding members include Grab — the airport food, beverage and e-commerce platform and Inflyter — the airport retail and duty free shopping platform enabling travelers to browse and buy ahead of their airport arrival and collect on either the inbound or outbound journey.

By helping to better connect travelers with experiences along the journey, the alliance will unlock significant non-aeronautical revenue opportunities for airports and airport businesses. When travelers enjoy a satisfying and seamless experience at the airport, they will be more engaged, less stressed and more likely to spend.

Collinson’s recent ‘Airport Journey’ research found that 88% of travelers who routinely spend $200 at the airport consider the airport experience to be an enjoyable part of the journey, compared to travelers who spend less than $28, of which only 40% say the same.

Joining the Collinson Airport Alliance gives airport businesses access to new, powerful, integrated platforms, built on Collinson’s leading technology and GDPR compliant data solutions. Partners within the alliance enjoy access to unified interfaces and API standards, to quickly create new propositions, bring them faster to market and make them accessible to target travelers.

Leveraging Collinson’s proprietary data and analytics tools, alliance partners also get access to 360° insights on traveller behaviour, needs and opportunities; and robust yet easy-to-use tools to action this insight for future business development or to develop tailored, timely communications to travelers.

Buckingham adds: “Travelers increasingly enjoy a simple, seamless, mobile-first experience outside the airport, and they expect the same during the airport journey. Happy travelers are more engaged and more likely to spend.

“The Collinson Airport Alliance also drives growth and stronger revenue performance by enabling start-ups, scale-ups and long-standing airport businesses to plug into our expansive network of partners, leading technology, and 30 years of customer engagement expertise.

There are a lot of creative start-ups out there, with some great ideas on how to improve the airport experience. With Collinson’s global reach, resources, technical standards and platforms, we see the alliance as an invaluable partner in supporting these companies on their growth journeys.”

Launching the alliance positions Collinson to be more hands-on and assertive in leading the future of the integrated traveller journey and bring more benefits to every party in an ever-more connected airport ecosystem. — SG