24 PARKER | 3RD QUARTER 2014 | 3IME TRIMESTRE 2014

Canadian airports, unlike most of

their American counterparts, are
operated by non-share, not-for-profit
airport authorities and are mandated
to operate as self-sustaining
businesses. This gives them greater
freedom to adopt new technology
pricing and marketing strategies that
help them reach their goals. This is
especially the case in commercial
areas like parking.
In the past few years, this technology has included the ability to give their customers the option to book and pre-pay for their car
parking online via the Canadians Airports website or mobile app. You might be surprised to learn that last month alone (June 2014)
nearly 10,000 fully prepaid parking bookings were made at just 3 of Canadas airports generating an additional $750,000 of revenue
for the airports. Edmonton Airport is predicted to grow its pre paid parking by 40% annually over 2015.
With this greater freedom the incentives and drivers for change can vary depending on the dynamics at each Airport,
however common factors are apparent. These include:
INCREASING COMPETITION
FROM OFF AIRPORT
CAR PARKS
UNDER BUDGET
ACHIEVEMENT FOR CAR
PARKING REVENUE
SPARE PARKING CAPACITY
OR VERY LIMITED CAPACITY
IN THE CAR PARKS
A DESIRE TO IMPROVE
CUSTOMER SERVICE

Another significant factor in the decision to adopt this new technology is the lack of specific information on who the passengers and
Airport customers are. Airlines have long since had access to this data but for many reasons have been either unable or unwilling to share
this detailed traveller data. By offering an online reservation solution for their car parks, the Airports are now gathering very detailed and
important data such as where their customers live, how far they travel to the airport, where they are travelling to and how far in advance
they are booking their parking, which is also good indication of the type of traveller leading to better market segmentation. An example of
this is business travellers - who tend to book within a few days of departure and leisure travellers who book weeks or even a year ahead
and are much more price sensitive. A significant benefit of owning this data is the ability to ensure that the on-airport concession outlets
meet the needs of the travellers that are using the airport. By engaging at an early stage in the relationship, for example through targeted
marketing in confirmation, pre arrival and post departure emails, concessions can raise awareness and attract customers.
European airports have successfully increased the customer spend through online booking by 2 per passenger. Translate this to Canada
and it would generate $25 million CAD a year in extra revenues.
Canadian Airports introduce
on-line car parking reservations
with great success
P
P
P
BY CHRIS MCKENTY
PARKER | 3RD QUARTER 2014 | 3IME TRIMESTRE 2014 25
Edmonton International Airport (EIA) led the adoption of online
reservations in Canada in 2010 by building a new off airport
car park owned by the airport. The off airport operation, named
JetSet, directly competes with the existing off airport operations
with a national brand that is transferrable to other Canadian
and potentially US Airports. This approach gave Edmonton the
opportunity to adopt many leading edge technologies across
the whole operation, including online reservations. The online
reservations were an immediate success for the Airport in
generating a new revenue stream with parking revenue climbing
faster than passenger footfall counts. The public wasted no time
capitalizing on the opportunity to reserve parking spaces online,
for both convenience and best value with now over 60% of JetSet
passengers booking their parking in advance.
Vancouver Airport replicated the JetSet brand by launching a newly
branded on airport car park with its online reservation solution in
early 2013 following the Edmonton success. Edmonton Airport
rolled out their on airport car parks also in early 2013. Ottawa
Airport launched in early 2014 focusing on offering their Long
Term Over height and Parkade car parks followed by Montreal later
in the year with others such as Toronto Pearsons and Winnipeg
due to introduce the online booking service shortly.
Launching an online reservation system can be a very testing
period as to create the perfect customer experience the system
must work like a flight reservation system, which offers the
customer a complete end to end self managed solution with
integration into payment gateways, third parties such as loyalty
programs, call centres, airlines, corporate entities and automatic
recognition by the car park barrier systems. This all must be
achieved whilst delivering value and a great customer experience.
The majority of the Airports started off with a three month soft
launch with limited availability to ensure that staff including the
car parking team, accounts departments and marketing teams
were well versed in the solution and are able to manage their
customer experience, space allocations, reconcile their accounts
and handle exceptions in the process. Following a soft launch
period a full review is typically carried out, data is analysed,
exceptions identified and documented and a full marketing launch
is planned, which includes promotion on the websites, throughout
the airports on walkways and advertising boards and on the pay
on foot machines and car park buses.
Adding an online parking reservation system to your website
or mobile application can appear a very simple task. However,
important factors for Airports and parking operations worldwide to
consider are; having an online reservation system that is mature,
seamlessly integrated into the Airports website, barrier equipment
etc, PCI Accredited, and continues to be evolved through input
from a global community of experienced professionals in the
Airport industry as it reduces risk and the need to commit to
ongoing development of the solution to meet future requirements
which will incur additional costs and increase risk.
Working with third parties to either incentivise your customers to
either park initially, return time and time again, or strengthen your
relationship with your airlines or corporate entities is equally if not
as important than just putting a reservation system in place. The
Canadian Airports have embraced this, for example a number of
the Airports allow their customers to earn loyalty points from their
parking transactions with either the British Columbia Automobile
Association (BCAA), Canadian Automobile Association (CAA) or
Aeroplan. Their system dynamically authenticates the members

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26 PARKER | 3RD QUARTER 2014 | 3IME TRIMESTRE 2014
details with the relevant loyalty program before
recording the transaction and passing the
transaction details on to the relevant program
for the awarding of points.
Working with the Airlines when they have
the ability to add parking products into their
baskets with the flight ticket is the next step for the airports.
Using interfaces with the reservations system such as web
services or airline branded web sites allows the airlines to
dynamically query the Airport parking reservation system using
the flight information for it to return products and prices that meet
the selection criteria. The relationship with the Airline can be that
their customers are offered preferred rates, different products
or that it tracks the transaction so that the Airline can earn
commission on the transaction. Working, as a group the Canadian
Airports are a more cohesive and stronger entity - using the same
solution. This allows major airlines to offer products and prices
in a single interface for all of the major
on-airport car parks.
This relationship can be an important
source of revenue for both the airline
that can add value to the customer whilst
earning commission on the parking
transaction, but also for the Airport who
can ensure that on-airport products are
offered to this wide audience or, using
the same solution, offer the customer
additional services via their own website
to book their flights for the Airline direct
along with their destination hotel and
car hire.
Edmonton Airport are now entering their
fourth year of offering the service and have
recently introduced customer registration
functionality that enables their customers
to store their vehicle and credit card
information in an online account. They
have utilized the registration technology
to create a rewards program called JetSet
Rewards. Through the registration, the
program provides Reward customers
exclusive discounts on parking as well
as discounts on retail, food and beverage
offerings. Registration also enables
customers to print off receipts, view
historical transactions and purchase
parking even more quickly and easily by
using their personal log-in via the Airports
website or their mobile device. In terms of
conversion if it easier for the customer to
make a purchase then this will help drive
repeat custom and improve conversation
rates. Our statistics show that over 40%
of newly registered customers return
versus only 25% of new non-registered
first time customers.
The customer registration has proved so
successful that Edmonton is extending
this to their wi-fi customers. They expect
to have a database of 750,000 passengers
within one year of launch.
As with other airports as they start to mature
with their systems the requirements start to
grow and generating increment revenue year
on year becomes much harder. This is being
achieved by the implementation of Yield Management or revenue
management. In simple terms revenue management is optimizing
the revenue return for your car park spaces by selling the right
amount of product at the right price across all car parks based on
existing and anticipated demand. And, where possible, stimulating
this demand through price incentives targeted at key market
segments whilst minimizing the risk of revenue dilution in others
such as roll up customers, at the same time as considering the
capacity constraints of each car park.
What makes parking different to a flight or hotel room in terms
of yield is that you are not able (except very rarely as to make it
irrelevant) to directly influence which airport the customer selects,
the stay dates or the duration of the parking. Parking is not a
primary purchase so this is pre-determined.
WHAT CAN BE INFLUENCED:
CUSTOMERS BOOKING ON AIRPORT (INCLUDING PARK
& RIDE ETC) RATHER THAN OFF AIRPORT?
CUSTOMERS DRIVING TO THE AIRPORT AND PARKING
RATHER THAN TRAVEL BY SOME OTHER MODE.
(E.G. PUBLIC TRANSPORT, DROP OFF PICK UP BY
FAMILY / FRIENDS, TAKE A TAXI ETC)
WHICH CAR PARK CUSTOMERS CHOOSE TO PARK IN?
WHICH PARKING PRODUCT CUSTOMERS SELECT. (E.G.
FLEXIBLE HIGHER PRICE, LOW COST DEAL, VALET ETC)
Airlines and hotels have, for many years, recognised the importance
of matching price to demand. It has become fundamental to their
revenue strategies. And customers also recognise that flights are
generally cheaper the further in advance you book and they be
offered a choice of ticket - flexible tickets being more expensive.
And so it is with parking that these same proven strategies are
being adopted amongst the Canadian Airports automatically using
their online reservation software.
With Canada set to become one of the worlds leading countries
of pre-booked parking by the end of 2015, the contribution that
online parking will make to the non-aeronautical revenues of
Canadian airports could be $856 million. And some 21 million
passengers will be known to the airport before they travel. They
will receive a personalised welcome and enjoy the benefits of
seamless travel arrangements from the moment they arrive at the
airport. Now that is win-win! n
Chris McKenty
Business Development Director, Chauntry Ltd
Notes for article:
Assumptions
Top 15 CDN airports have 107 million pax per year
Assumed average transaction of $40
Assumed 30% book