A new era of personalised airport services, at Carrasco International Airport

Personalisation is changing the travel experience at Carrasco International Airport in Uruguay. CREDIT: Carrasco International Airport

Carrasco International Airport in Uruguay has elevated the traveller’s journey by providing personalised services that guarantee a distinctive and bespoke experience for every individual, perfectly tailored to their needs.

Airports in the past may have been able to get away with a one-size-fits-all products and services. However, travellers today are savvier and more discerning than ever, so offering a standard experience without taking into consideration their specific needs isn’t enough anymore. The road to increasingly personalised airport services is inevitable, and it is also desirable, as it not only elevates the experience of the passengers but offers airports a roadmap to a successful and sustainable growth.

At Carrasco International Airport, we have been working on tailoring client services as much as possible for a very long time. Actively listening to our customers is a principle that we live by, as it allows us to make decisions based on our observations and data, to continuously adapt to our passengers’ needs.  

We are convinced that observing past behaviours, listening to feedback, and putting ourselves in passengers’ shoes is the best way to understanding what they want and need. Doing so, we hope not only to respond to their needs, but also to anticipate it.

An option for every need

The personalisation of their experience starts even before they travel, as the passenger journey begins at the palm of their hands. Through our e-commerce platform AeroShop, we propose to begin their journey by picking and choosing services and products they may need from us.

For example, they can easily find different alternatives to anticipate and plan their parking needs. Whilst a year ago we only had two options – long stay parking for up to 30 days at our open or covered parking lot at a promotional price – our offer has grown to respond to their behaviours and needs.

Today, we offer five different options, which include long stay parking for up to 15 or 30 days, for both open or covered parking lots, as well as a new long stay parking membership for frequent travellers. This allows for better customisation of their experience, and thus ensures a happier, more comfortable traveller to enjoy our facilities.

We have also investigated increasing the availability of options regarding our VIP lounges and services. Whilst we have two lounges at Carrasco International Airport, at arrivals and departures, there are currently eight different formats at our online store to use our services.

We have tailored the offer to the behaviour and motivations that we have detected in our passengers, and now offer different types of memberships, individual access, corporate or personal accounts among others.

Offering carefully curated packages for specific passenger needs is an effective strategy that prioritises individualised attention, and addresses the unique needs of each individual, ensuring that every person feels valued and cared for.

Catering to different needs and desires

As we follow the passenger’s footsteps along their journey with us, we want to make sure that they have a personalised experience within our facilities as well. We strive to do this by expanding the services and products we offer through our concessionaires as well.

We have many food and beverages options so that clients have a variety of delights to choose. Our offerings span from fast food to artisanal baked goods, healthy dining or authentic Uruguayan specialities. Our commitment is to cater to every palate, satisfying any taste or whim, regardless of the hour.

This principle applies also to the gastronomic variety we offer at both of our VIP lounges, which not only include a wide range of options that change throughout the day, but also ensure that customers with specific food restrictions or requirements such as gluten free, vegan, sugar free and others, have delicious options available to indulge as well.

Digitalising the entire journey

Simplifying the travel journey at its most challenging touchpoints is also key to delivering an unforgettable, stress-free and enjoyable experience for our passengers. We have heavily relied on innovation and technology to improve processes and operations, and as a result the customer service.

Through our Easy Airport solution, we offer a fully digital passenger journey, using biometric border control eGates in departures and arrivals, biometric boarding gates where your face is your boarding pass, with plans to expand to bag drop soon.

Easy Airport uses artificial intelligence, self-service technologies, and Internet of Things devices to deliver a more agile, efficient, and safer end-to-end passenger flow at our airport touchpoints.

It thus offers a self-managed process with the highest security standards, enabling each passenger to go through the process at their own rhythm. Manual booths are available at every touchpoint for those that prefer a face-to-face interaction.

CREDIT: Carrasco International Airport

A critical aspect in the entire journey is managing the time spent at the different point of contact and control, as extended queuing has an impact on how the passenger feels and the freedom they have to enjoy the airport, thus affecting their mood and consumption habits.

Easy Airport not only makes the process faster, but it also includes a real-time queueing management module that ensures that our operations team can predict the most problematic of times and take quick actions and decisions to ensure experience remains unaffected.

Adapting and evolving with our customers

A recent report published by Airport Council International World, Oliver Wyman and the Sustainable Tourism Global incubated by the Ministry of Tourism of Saudi Arabia, titled ‘The Evolution of Airports’ identifies four airports archetypes that generally categorise an airport’s purpose and outlook.

Carrasco International Airport is the one chosen to illustrate as a case study for ‘the leisure airport’ type, which describes airports that serves a tourist destination. This type of airport needs to focus profoundly on delivering the highest experience, as they became part of the destination itself.

We believe that our long-time focus on customer experience, our leveraging technology, expanding our offer, improving our products and services to deliver a more personalised journey has been key to being recognised as an airport the prioritises customers at every moment.

Understanding that what makes the passenger experience superior is personalising their experience and catering to the different needs, motivations and desires of our customers has been a fundamental component which allows us to keep delivering great experiences every day.

This is an ongoing and ever evolving journey, so we are committed to keeping our eyes and ears always tuned in to our passenger, so we can make sure that they not only need our services, but choose to do so and enjoy it.