Airport Retailing: Examining Airline Passengers' Impulsive Shopping Behaviour

Abstract

ABSTRACT Airports are ostensibly designed and built to fulfil the behavioural and psychological needs of airline passengers and other users. As a retail location, airports offer consumers a wide variety of facilities and customer satisfaction with the airport retail offering depends on the manner in which airline passengers experience the airport environment (Hackett and Foxall, 1997). Airport retailing is characteristically related to airport environmental conditions (Omar and Kent, 2001). This paper presents empirical evidence that airline passengers' self-assessment about the appropriateness of engaging in impulse shopping behaviour moderate the relationship between the airport influences on impulse shopping and passengers' behaviour. The research questioned two hundred and fifty-two (252) passengers and found that the relationship between airport impulsive shopping and the related shopping behaviour is significant only when airline passengers believe that acting on impulse is appropriate. This finding...