It’s a quote from a focus group we conducted several years back that probed passenger spending habits at the airport. I’m sure it’s a sentiment with which we’re all familiar. We all behave differently when in that departure lounge compared to how we’d conduct ourselves in “everyday life”. We almost feel obliged to spend as part of the holiday/travel experience. Speaking personally, you’d rarely find me contemplating high-end Swiss watches in the jewellers of Bond Street, and yet that’s exactly what I found myself doing the other day on one of my fairly regular trips out to Heathrow. It’s still a special experience even for me, and, as you might imagine, I’m there more often than most.

All of which perhaps goes to explain why retail at the airport is bucking the economic trend. We’re all aware of the squeeze that the economic downturn and corresponding VAT increase has put on our propensity to spend on the High St. We’re still spending of course, but only at or around the level we spent last year. And yet in the first six months of 2011 recently released figures from BAA show that our spending in the shops at Heathrow has increased by a staggering 16% year on year. If anyone ever needed evidence to support the fact that airport behaviour is different then they should look no further. And anyone involved in marketing brands on sale at the airport should look very closely indeed.