In the first of six articles that will help destinations and airports gain a better understanding of how to develop successful air services, Gavin Eccles, Professor of Aviation at Universidade Lusófona, takes a look at how tourism boards can best support air connectivity to their destination.
Gavin’s previous roles have included development in British Airways, as well as consultancy projects for United Airlines, American Airlines, Qantas, and supporting the development of low-cost airlines to touristic destinations. Gavin has held a Board Position (CCO) at Portuguese airline, SATA International, and has been the advisor to the Board of Visit Portugal on air connectivity.
As a Professor, Gavin is responsible for programs spanning the commercial aspects of aviation and airports and works closely with Aeroclass on executive courses bringing DMOs and airports together for tailored learning programs that support route development for destinations.
For many years the perception of the function of a national or regional tourism board (or Destination Management Company – DMO) was that such entities participate in marketing and public relations (PR). In particular, DMOs build the image of a destination and ensure that all communications are put in place to help drive tourists to visit. On top of that, a tourism board will then build a brand message and ensure that what resonates is the great imagery and associations that come to mind when thinking about a destination. With this in mind, it is apparent that not enough emphasis has been placed on the development of routes and links with airlines in the past, and network development has very much been with the destination airports’ team.
Many of us will remember the great campaigns from India, with its ‘Incredible India’ message that flooded the media in the 90s, and New Zealand,which showcased the ‘Lord of the Rings’ filming locations as a reason to visit. Moving forward though,this is still pertinent to a destination, and marketing and communications are still a key part of the tourism board toolkit. Perhaps the shift today is to more of an online rather than off-line call to action, but that is not so different to how the great FMCG (fast moving consumer goods) product and service businesses have switched their allegiance to the online and social platforms instead of more traditional media.
However, what is true is that DMOs must think much deeper and wider than this, in particular, they must now focus on how to attract the right airlift to a destination and build a robust connectivity culture. Why? Well, the COVID-19 pandemic allowed airlines to fundamentally change how they plan routes. From long-lead times of two to three years to starting a new route, the pandemic allowed carriers to deliver routes in less than a year, taking advantage of those markets that were open and ensuring they moved their aircraft around in a much more aligned and commercial way. While planning for three years ahead is great when we have no drama or predicted incidents, it is not such a useful way to plan assets when we can switch around and look to gain some power back from airlines.
During and straight after the COVID-19 pandemic, airlines were looking at route development (from concept to starting) with services taking less than a year to implement. Such new ways of working led to airlines having a new buzzword, something which came to be known as Route Experimentation – let’s see how it goes. This was not the norm for how airlines planned, but with challenges, such as knowing what was open, what we could operate, etc., the traditions of aviation were challenged. Moving on, we now see 2024 travel levels coming back stronger, and, in the eyes of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), the number of passengers carried in 2024 will be greater than carried back in 2019. Airlines are now back with a vengeance and are much more agile in how they plan and pick up on the trends and patterns around where people may be travelling.
With this in mind, tourism boards should be listening, following and developing a set of connectivity measures. In particular, how can they get customers to fly to their destinations? New models of aviation, particularly the narrowbody aircraft that will be able to fly for up to 10 hours, allow new markets to be considered. Previously to serve with a 350+ person widebody would mean over capacity in many cases and a negative yield to the airline with their pricing. However, the vision is ‘less is more’ (fewer passengers but the potential to increase more seats if the derived demand is there), and the ability to fly people the distances of widebodies but enhancing the seat revenue of fewer seats means higher returns for all. So, how is a destination looking at international markets that have previously been ‘off-limits’ to the short distances of narrowbody aircraft, but are now well in-line with the range and scope that such new machines bring?
To start, how is your destination set up to talk with airlines and build business cases on why they should fly to your country/region? Have you been looking at available data sources that bring both historical data (how many people have flown directly vs. how many people have flown in-direct), as well as what people are doing with booking and search activities? Search and understanding future bookings analysis are great ways that destinations can showcase to carriers the sentiment of the destination. In particular, what segments and profiles are seeking to know more and how these fit with you are targeting. The more qualitative insights that we can share with our airline partners the better; allowing for a more blended approach whereby we can correlate how the destination has performed in the past (quantitative insights) with who may visit in the future. In particular, which customer segments are searching for the destination, and what are their interests. Such data is not currently presented by airports, so new sentiment analysis is a great opportunity for DMOs to be at the route development table and showcase that they are more than just promotion and public relations.
So, what next for destinations? As we see airlines looking to introduce new technologies that allow for further flying with narrowbody aircraft, secondary and third level airports can start to look at new source markets that would have otherwise been off-limits. This showcases that destinations need to be much more aligned with the trends and opportunities of the aviation sector and use such thinking to create a sense of which carriers and from which markets. This allows tourism boards to be more opportunistic when making contacts within carriers to describe their destination stories, and how they see airlines engaging with DMOs as the range and scope of flight brings them closer to serving a destination.
In conclusion, in the past, air services development was very much an airline and airport project, where the vision was all about, “so, what do you have for me? Can you offer me reductions in my landing charges, or what kick-back will I get at the end of the season if I deliver X number of passengers over what we had discussed?”. But we have moved beyond this and the importance of the DMO is now a part of the discussion in two ways. Firstly, to provide the airline with marketing support and to help ensure route success. And, secondly, the insights and sentiments that tourism brings to the business case. Knowing what tourists are looking at when studying a destination and what they are searching for is interesting for airlines as they plan their routes.
As tourism boards become more integrated with air services development, it is paramount that such players have the key insights and knowledge to make a business case to a carrier and to fully understand the way that airlines plan their development. Gaining such insights is crucial and today’s DMOs are seeking out programs that allow the trade and strategy teams to discuss and negotiate the services needed to support the destination’s development strategy.
Bringing insights to partners on how to build robust business cases and how to incentivise the carrier with co-marketing campaigns will be key parts of any training in air services development. This forms a strong basis for the Aeroclass’ route development programs that have been set-up to support DMO and airport personnel. Taking the teams on a journey to see how best to manage their air services is key and allows participants to really engage with why airlines should fly to a destination.
Join Gavin next month as we look at best practices for how to support an integrated discussion with airlines.