Airport community surveys are an effective way to accurately measure awareness, perception, satisfaction, and other key performance indicators among a target market.
Crucial for understanding the needs of travelers, these airport surveys also gather details from locals and businesses. The data obtained here provides insights into customer satisfaction, operational details, and environmental impact.
The main goal of these surveys is for airports to improve using actionable data. Not only ideal for improving passenger experiences, the surveys will also help airports maintain positive relationships with the surrounding community.
Interested in conducting an airport community survey? Our team is ready to help. Simply contact Drive Research by emailing [email protected] or filling out an online contact form.
What is an Airport Community Survey?
An airport community survey delivers important data about an airport's impact on a region. Using this feedback, airport authorities can make data-driven improvements.
When thinking of an airport, it's normal to immediately associate them with travelers flying to various destinations. But an airport is much more than just travelers.
Airports are a vital component of any community, from how they interact/partner with local businesses to the economic boost they bring to an area. They provide residents with countless jobs, promote tourism, and improve infrastructure development.
Airport community surveys are used to gather feedback and data from the following groups:
- Passengers
- Local residents
- Businesses
- Employees
In order for an airport survey to yield the best data, it needs to address more than just passengers. While their feedback is important, it's just as essential to get feedback from the other groups listed above.
This feedback will not only improve the experience of passengers but of the surrounding community in general.
Importance of Conducting Airport Community Surveys
These community surveys inform airport authorities of how they can improve their relationship with their local region. Of course, airport community surveys aim to improve the travel experience, but they also promote community relations and create new strategic avenues.
Promote Traveler's Experience
A key area airport community surveys target is passenger experience.
To gather data on this, the airport survey will ask questions about the experiences and preferences of passengers using a specific airport.
The goal is to understand what makes traveling from/to this airport easy, difficult, and anything in between.
At its core, gathering these preferences is a way to enhance an airport's customer experience.
Airports will be able to take this information and make improvements to their services, facilities, and other areas based on feedback straight from passengers.
Cultivating Community Relationships
Airports have an integral role in the community.
Aside from boosting tourism, they also offer new jobs to community members and help develop the infrastructure of a town or city. Additionally, airports also generate businesses in the surrounding area with nearby hotels and restaurants.
Airports can work to engage both residents and businesses by conducting surveys. The data obtained can help them tackle community concerns, with common issues being noise pollution, impact on the environment, and other related complaints.
Community members not only will be able to share their thoughts, but they will feel their opinions matter by receiving a survey. This will help strengthen their relationship with the airport, while the airport can also begin to correct valid concerns addressed in the survey.
Informed Decisions
Surveys provide businesses with actionable data so that they can improve current systems. Airports stand to gain much by running surveys to gather feedback from the community.
Using the feedback, airports can improve their marketing strategy, customer satisfaction rates, employee retention, and much more.
If airport authorities chose to forego community surveys, they would miss out on key information that could drastically improve their business efforts.
As with any organization, there may be certain issues that management teams are unaware of. The beauty of surveys is that the data can reveal these issues, leading to their resolution.
Airports are no exception, especially because they have an influence on so many audiences.
How to Conduct an Airport Community Survey
Conducting an airport community survey follows the standard market research process. It's important for airports to partner with a third-party market research team for this, Below, we'll briefly walk you through the main steps.
Kickoff
A kickoff meeting is when the research team meets with the client, in this case, relevant teams from the airport. They will discuss key objectives, main goals, and have a chance to bring up any other concerns. This meeting sets the tone for the overall project and shouldn't be skipped!
Survey Design and Fieldwork
Once the research team has a clear idea of what the airport wants to achieve and who they specifically want to target, the survey design process begins.
It's ideal to include a variety of question types to ensure the respondents stay engaged til the end. The research team will also thoroughly review the questions, ensuring they are free of errors and make sense.
After that, fieldwork begins.
The survey is programmed into an online platform and sent out to participants to complete. Depending on the scale of the project, this period can last anywhere from a few weeks to a few months.
Data Cleaning
The data will be carefully reviewed, or cleaned, to ensure only the best quality data gets through.
Common errors picked up during this step include nonsensical responses, straightlining, and fast completion times. All of these indicate the respondent rushed through the survey, likely not putting much thought into their answers.
Reporting and Debrief
Finally, the data will be placed into a market research report and presented to the airport's team. These reports contain key data points from the survey, common themes/patterns, and expert recommendations from the team.
A final meeting will be held between the two teams, where the researchers will review their findings. Similar to the kickoff meeting, this is a good chance for the airport's team to ask any final questions.
Case Study: Airport Community Survey
Our travel and tourism market research company conducted an airport community survey. This section will share our process, example questions, and best practices to ensure your survey is successful.
Airport Community Survey Objectives
A market research project always starts with a proposal.
During this step, a market research team will ask about the goals and objectives of the study, discuss best approaches for the market research, next steps, and deliverables.
For this specific project, an airport and consulting company partnered with Drive Research to conduct a market research study.
The airport community survey objectives included a better understanding of:
- Passenger profiles
- Unmet needs
- Drivers to the usage of competitors
- How to draw more passenger traffic to the airport
These insights were gathered across critical audiences, such as business, leisure, and combined audiences. The investment in market research provided the client with definitive, measurable, and actionable feedback to guide the next steps with marketing and strategy for the airport.
Recommended Reading: How to Request a Proposal for Market Research.
Approach to Conducting a Community Airport Survey
To address the objectives at-hand, our travel market research firm recommended a hybrid market research approach.
The two airport market research studies included:
- An intercept survey at the airport, the home and garden show, and a community shopper area where tourists frequent.
- An online survey to the general community including consumers and businesses.
The combination of these methodologies provided the airport with comprehensive answers to crucial questions and objectives.
The community survey took an average of 10 minutes to complete and included 32 questions. The intercept surveys are an ongoing market research project, therefore the final time to complete is not finalized.
Example Airport Community Survey Questions
The community survey was successful in answering the client's key objectives including:
- How many trips did respondents take in 2019?
- How will travel habits change after the COVID-19 pandemic ends?
- What concerns did respondents have about using an airport during the COVID-19 pandemic?
- Do respondents know where the airport is located?
- What airport are respondents aware of?
- What experiences did respondents have at the airport in 2019?
- Which airport did respondents choose and why?
- Why did respondents travel by car/personal vehicle when traveling to/from the airport's location?
- What factors are most important at an airport now?
- Where have respondents seen or heard about the airport in the past three months?
- Are respondents aware of what the airport offers?
- Are respondents likely to pay a slightly higher fare (i.e., $50 to $99 more) to use the airport?
- What suggestions or amenities did respondents have for the airport?
Results of the Airport Community Survey
The survey received 167 responses. Fieldwork for the community survey began on September 25 and lasted until November 15, 2020.
With a probabilistic sample, a total of 167 responses at the 95% confidence level offers a 7.6% margin of error.
If the survey were conducted with another random pool of 167 community members, results would yield within +7.6% or -7.6% of the stated totals in the reports.
The final deliverable for the airport market research project was a topline summary.
This topline summary features the results of the community survey only. Once the intercept surveys are completed, the findings will be wrapped into a comprehensive report.
Recommended Reading: How to Conduct a Traveler Survey
Conduct a Community Airport Survey with Drive Research
Drive Research is a national market research company, specializing in travel and tourism qualitative and quantitative services. Our team partners with airlines and airports across the country.
Interested in conducting a community survey with Drive Research? Contact us below.
- Message us on our website
- Email us at [email protected]
- Call us at 888-725-DATA
- Text us at 315-303-2040
Emily Taylor
As Director of Operations, Emily does more than wrangle data. Her work includes executing company OKRs, company-wide project management, training/onboarding, team culture initiatives, and more!
Learn more about Emily, here.
