Airport Shopping: A Study of Sequential Purchasing at Dubai Duty Free

Airport revenues come from both aeronautical and non-aeronautical sources. Globally, non-aeronautical revenues are becoming increasingly important; they account for half of all revenues at airports of which airport retailing contributes a significant part. Moreover, airport retailing has experienced a significant change over the last decade with an increasing number of product varieties and an augmented shopping experience. However, research on the influence of individual journey modes (plane, boat, bus or train) – on travel retail in general and airport retailing specifically – is limited as most studies have predominantly concentrated on the destination effect. As an example, of 478 articles published by two of the leading travel and tourism industry journals (Journal of Travel Research and Tourism Management) between 2015 and 2017, just 6 papers related to the airline and airport industry. Within the literature in general most prior research on travellers’ shopping behaviour at airports has been mainly descriptive, and centred on identifying various shopping types and their underlying motivations. Although insightful in identifying the uniqueness of the airport shopping environment, this research was predicated on a traditional duty-free shopping environment with fairly limited product varieties.