San Francisco International Airport Position Paper: Guest Experience

Entering the doors of an airport may be worrisome and timid especially if it’s a first time traveler particularly for a child. The first time experience would always trigger a memory in regard to the factors of sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch. That particular memory should be able to captivate the most remarkable experience that child has ever had in an airport, which should be a positive guest experience rather than a negative. That experience should be meaningful enough to provide he/she with the courage to become a future frequent flyer. The future for airport guest experience appeals to modernity and contemporary, which should actively engage each of the physical senses to stimulate a positive everlasting guest experience. This guest experience is key to acquiring a strong market appeal, high profitability, and brand loyalty in order to become competitive and sustainable in the market. The top airport in the world recognized for their overall excellence among 100 airports is Singapore Changi Airport. This particular airport is a perfect example of providing an everlasting guest experience, which features appealing entertainment, architectural designs, and abundant convenient shops, amenities, and services (http://www.worldairportawards.com/Awards_2013/top100.htm). The current features SFO has that classify itself as one of the top airports in the region in terms of guest experience are the aviation museum and library, contemporary architectural designs, Berman reflection room, Flight Deck, Kid’s Spot, and convenient shops, amenities, and services. In regard to recognition, SFO was recognized for the highest honor in annual concession awards in the food & beverages programs and the Environmental Achievement Award (www.flysfo.com). Certainly SFO has the appeal of taste and sight of the physical senses through their complex architectural designs and delicious foods that strongly appeal to guests. In regard to sight, the airport is perfectly clean, organized, and maintained as it projects a professional appearance. It has recently renovated Terminal 3 to provide a “more enhance travel experience with natural lightening, uninterrupted views, and thoughtfully located retail and dinning” facilities, thus creating a “cohesive, relaxing space for passengers to enjoy.” Personally, I enjoyed Terminal 3 because of its contemporary appeal. In regard to taste, the airport has a variety of cultural restaurants that originate from local sources. Personally, I enjoyed Live Fire Pizza restaurant because of its delicious foods and beverages in addition to its contemporary presence. Their pizza was exceptionally fresh, and beverages were amazing (www.flysfo.com) However, SFO lacks the stimulus senses of hearing, touch, and smell to further provide a dynamic experience. In regard to hearing, sounds are part of an everlasting experience, whether it is from a (20 feet) waterfall and/or pond in an airport similar to Changi Airport, in which I highly recommend SFO to replicate. In regard to improving sight, I recommend SFO to implement nature sceneries to represent their support for being environmentally friendly and green such as incorporating a butterfly garden, sunflower garden, palm tree garden, pool garden, and/or vertical garden similar to Changi. These are very appealing because they make people feel they are not in an ordinary airport, but make them feel like they are outdoors with nature with smell, touch, and sight. SFO has also implemented displacement ventilation, which will “further enhance passenger comfort by using natural updrafts.” This creates a “fresh-air feeling, more like being outdoors, but highly recommend SFO to implement real plants, and a small aquarium with sea creatures that represent the Bay Area, which will entertain guests (http://www.changiairport.com/at-changi/) In regard to touch, I do think that SFO did a good judgment on implementing the Flight Deck on Terminal 3, which is touch interactive about the history of San Francisco aviation. I do believe with more of these present in the airport will add value to guests especially children, who would interact with this technology to gain further knowledge and entertainment similar to Changi’s aviation gallery, a multi-sensory zone. In regard to addressing people moving within a large airport such as SFO, we would need to ensure that a majority if not all SFO staff, are communicating to guests in a polite, friendly, engaging, welcoming, and warm manner. Further, we need to address people by satisfying their guests needs such as what was recently implemented such as showers, yoga room, banking services, and medical clinics. However, I do think that SFO can possibly do more to such as Changi, which has an “entertainment deck that is comprised of a multi-media entertainment centre to thrill everyone, movie theatres for guests to relax when in transit, and more. In order to incorporate social media in a positive guest experience, we would need to ensure guest are in fact enjoying themselves with all the physical senses to stimulate an everlasting guest experience. This will allow guests to become brand loyal customers to SFO, which would allow them to provide positive reviews about the airport through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. This provides word of mouth marketing, which would lead to high market appeal. In regard to tailoring to guests that do not use computers or the internet, we would need to ensure that computers and/or the internet are convenient, accessible, and easy for guests to use. We need to ensure that these guests are highly informed of such devices, and are easy to use. However, if these devices are unavailable to them, SFO should implement kiosks stations and/or similar interactive Flight Decks to tailor to these particular guests. The airport services I envision in regard to my ideal guest experience would be factors that contribute to the senses of touch, smell, taste, hearing, and sight. These factors are an absolute must to create an everlasting experience with SFO. In particular, SFO airport needs to implement nature sceneries such as a pond, waterfall, garden, aquarium, and/or incorporate more entertainment for guests. In regard to convincing airline practices to be parallel to my vision, I would acknowledge the advantages and disadvantages. SFO has everything to satisfy guests from restaurants, bars, internet, shops, cultural/science exhibits, massage/spa treatments, and kids playground, but the airport needs to go beyond ordinary, and appeal to distinctiveness.