There's an interesting article in a recent Marketing Week on luxury retail at airports. At a time when we're all supposedly tightening our belts and still reeling from government cuts, rising fuel and food costs, and distant memories of payrises it perhaps comes as no surprise that we're spending less on the High Street. And yet recent research from BDRC Continental suggests that airport retail sales will increase by an average of 6 percentage points a year between 2008 and 2012. So clearly there's something about the airport experience that makes us behave differently from the more routine way we shop in "everyday life". One of our focus group participants once said "At the airport I feel like a millionaire". Now presumably this respondent wasn't talking about the way they felt on the 06.20 from Heathrow to Edinburgh, but the fact remains that 68% of airport users spend money at the airport, and 6% spend it on luxury items. So that's 4 million luxury purchasers a year at Heathrow, the airport that, for the second year running, has just scooped the "Best Global Airport for Shopping Award". 11,000 people every day spending on high value items in retailers such as Tiffany, Bulgari, Cartier, and Chanel.
 
Our AER research tells us that our frame of mind is very different in airports. They're exciting, visual and innovative places - portals to many of most memorable experiences we'll ever enjoy. And this clearly has a bearing on our purchase behaviour. For 51 weeks of the year we'd never dream of browsing on Bond Street, but in that lounge we're moving in a different world. We are high-flyers, and for the 90 minutes before we're called to the gate we'll behave accordingly!