Seamless travel experience

An airport analytics solution could make a significant difference in the overall customer experience, explains Firas Jadalla, Regional Director—Middle East, Turkey and Africa (META), Genetec.

The summer period is a peak season for the travel industry in the GCC. On one hand, Dubai Airport alone welcomes 1 billion travellers this year, while on the other, the current total economic contribution of tourism and travel in Saudi Arabia is approximately 258.1 billion compared to 240.9 billion in 2017. With a huge number of travellers, airports find it challenging to offer a smooth passenger experience. This is when an airport analytics solution could make a huge difference in the overall customer experience ’

The Tech Game

With Middle East’s busy airports, it is vital to implement advanced and connected technologies to ensure a smooth passenger experience. Until now, airports have traditionally relied on stand-alone, unconnected systems to manage passenger flow and security. However, airport security, operations managers, business analysts and airport executives should be able to analyse and correlate data provided by multiple sensors such as video surveillance cameras, access control hardware, and IoT connected devices.

Like any business, the success of an airport relies on the customer’s experience. This is why having a deeper understanding of what’s happening in an airport facility helps airport staff make timely and informed decisions to improve passenger experience. Such insights would also help increase revenue for duty-free, retail, and food services in the airport terminal. For example, essential elements for a safe, easy-to-navigate, and profitable airport include understanding how people flow from the parking areas, check-in, duty-free and retail shops, in-airport cafes and dining areas. Combining and processing correlative data will help airport managers to understand this traffic and design a seamless traveller experience resulting in increased brand attachment, venue and airline loyalty, and positive business growth.

Analytics Awareness

By relying on powerful analytics such as queue detection and delays, heat mapping, directional analysis and people counting, Genetec Airport Sense pinpoints hindrances to the flow of passengers in ticketing, screening and passport control and can identify where wait lines build in areas such as duty free, dining, entertainment, and pre-boarding. Through intuitive web-based dashboards and dynamic maps, security personnel, operations and business analysts and retailers stay informed of real-time activity and compare it against key performance indicators (KPI) or historical trends.