How do passengers experience the retail offer at the airports based on their travel profile (Business traveler Vs Leisure traveler)?

In this research, it is examined how travelers experience the retail offer at an airport, dependent on the purpose of their trip, where the purpose can be defined as business or leisure. In that content, the research question is: How passengers experience the retail offer at the airport based on their travel profile (business and leisure travelers)? To address the research question a qualitative approach of in-depth interviews was chosen, since the goal is to deeply understand the traveler’s behavior. The sample for the in-depth interviews was taken from the employees of Unilever Netherlands. That opportunity was given since I had an internship in the homecare procurement department. The results of this research indicate the following. Activities, emotions and their travel companion inside the airport, are the three “characteristics” that change the most in their retail experience inside the airport. That means that when people travel for business, they tend to do different activities, experience different emotions and travel with different group of people compared to a leisure travel. Still, there are some “characteristics” that are not affected in a big extend from the purpose of the trip. Those seems to be the arrival time at the airport, the perception of the retail atmosphere and the products that people tend to buy. Concluding, when participants travel for business they are still on a working mood and are not willing to get involved in shopping activities, in contrast, they prefer to spend their time working. When it comes for leisure, the same people are much happier and more relaxed. They are already in a vacation mood which means that they are much more prone to get involved in shopping activities and spend money at the airport.