Airport operators have had a fondness for retail for quite some time given the great synergy between high foot traffic, captive consumers and the high probability of impulse purchases. In the mid-2000s, some U.S. developers even considered going as far as building big-box stores next to international airports.
Then, British anti-terrorism police uncovered the plot to blow up multiple trans-Atlantic flights using liquid explosives and airport retail seemed poised to take a serious hit. Fortunately, that didn’t happen. Global airport retail flourished over the past five years, rising 40 percent to $27 billion, according to Luciana Suran, economist with CBRE Econometric Advisors, a Boston-based research firm.
To learn more about where airport retail is heading, read Suran’s full report here.