August ARN 2009 Double Dipping

News, Gift Store Pairings
Can Save Space,
Add To Passenger Convenience
By Andrew Tellijohn
As printed in the August 2009 issue of ARN
When NewsLink Group LLC was preparing to propose for a news and gift
location at John F. Kennedy International’s
(JFK) Terminal 8, the concessions officials
were looking for a location that combined
typical news and gift items with coffee, food
and snacks.
NewsLink has a food subsidiary called
PremAIR Hospitality Group LLC that
operates Juan Valdez Café, so company
officials put the two concepts together
and won the space.
“It’s one footprint, it’s pre-security. ... It’s
very successful and well received,” says
Raymond Kayal Jr., president and CEO of
NewsLink and CEO of the PremAIR
subsidiary. “I think that the two of them
together are better than either of them
alone. I think the synergies between
somebody who wants to purchase a news
and gift item and at the same time they
have the opportunity in the same footprint
to purchase a coffee beverage or baked
good, I just think the synergies there make
a lot of sense. I don’t know if it’s any more
sophisticated than that.”
One factor working in its favor is the
single point-of-sale where customers line
up to buy both the food and retail items.
38
A R N AUGUST 2009
Areas USA and Airport Retail Management jointly proposed the Cafe
Intermezzo concept at ATL that will house a sit-down coffee shop, a
bookstore, and a news and gift outlet. Cafe Intermezzo is a well-known
Atlanta brand with seating and ambience that resembles a European cafe.
“It’s literally one integrated store,” Kayal
says.
So far, the year-old store is the only dual
unit in the company’s portfolio, and there
aren’t any immediate plans to add more.
“I haven’t seen a flood of recent
opportunities going in this direction,”
Kayal says. “We don’t have anything on
the drawing board currently to do this, but
we’re open to the possibility. I do think
there are synergies.”
But as airports attempt to squeeze more
and more dollars out of their concessions
programs by squeezing as much as
possible into every available square inch,
he and other industry officials say they
could see doing more of these kinds of
stores in markets where it makes sense.
“From our perspective, we would
consider doing this in other airports,” he
says. “In certain airports, depending on
the traffic patterns and the location of the
actual premises, it certainly would make
sense in other locations.”
Hudson Group
Constantly Pairing
Airport requirements and space
restrictions are two of the main factors that
go into planning for Hudson Group. The
retailer frequently pairs its standard news
and gift shops with other concepts for ease
of management and to maximize lease
space, says Laura Samuels, spokeswoman.
Three regularly used news and gift
combos include:
• Hudson News/Hudson Booksellers:
This is a natural combination, Samuels
says, because many customers who visit
the news and gift store do so in search for
reading materials.
“Hudson News has the most comprehensive selection of magazines and
newspapers in the industry,” she says. “In
newsstands where there is space, and that
is the vast majority of them, we devote as
much space as possible to a section of the
store called Hudson Booksellers, where
The Paradies Shops takes each airport
location on a case-by-case basis. The
company has paired different concepts at
airports where the demographics
warranted doing so. It says it comes down
to providing airports and travelers with
whatever it takes to keep them happy.
the same customers can finish browsing
for magazines and move on to books. ...
The crossover is fantastic.”
Hudson’s bookstore sales approached
$100M last year, she adds.
• Hudson News/Euro Café: Another
combination allows customers to purchase
reading materials and a cup of coffee,
which Samuels says is the second most
sought item by air travelers, along with the
company’s array of grab-and-go foods.
“The Euro Café menu complements
the Hudson News snack programs,” she
says. “The arrangement is beneficial to
the company, as it optimizes lease space
and it is easy to staff and manage both
the newsstand and the café’s grab-andgo programs.”
• Hudson News/Discover: A growing
number of Hudson News stores are also
featuring special sections devoted to
high-quality gifts, ranging from apparel to
collectibles, Samuels says. Discover stores
offer authentic souvenirs and mementos
from a city’s top attractions. Many are
standalone stores that perform well on
their own, but many more are sections
within the news and gift stores.
“In Richmond,” Samuels adds, “there is
a Hudson News that contains a Hudson
Booksellers, Discover Virginia and a Kids
Works, Hudson’s proprietary toy concept.”
In addition to maximizing store space,
Hudson emphasized the psychological
advantage of combining multiple brands
into one store.
“A customer can shop through one
store and make his or her purchases
conveniently at one time at one cash
register,” she says. “They only have to take
their wallet out once, and all their
purchases are placed in a single bag. That
is a great convenience for the traveler.”
Mike Levy, Hudson’s senior vice president
of merchandising, adds that pairing the
Hudson brand with other national players
such as BlackBerry, iGo, Flexplay or
Samsonite actually enhances both or all of
the brands.
“These premium brands positioned
throughout Hudson News make it clear to
the customer that they can buy with
confidence the very best in electronics
accessories, luggage and travel basics,
time-sensitive DVDs, Platinum collection
sunglasses and reading glasses, premium
single-serve chocolates and fine cards
and writing papers,” he says.
Paradies Flexible
With Store Combos
The Paradies Shops doesn’t have set
pairings that it will turn to for a given
location but the company has, from time
to time, paired two unique concepts into
one locale when individual situations
called for it.
“If a particular location calls for a
specific category, whether it’s a bakery or
a coffee shop, we would look at it,” says
Bruce Feuer, vice president of business
development. “We don’t have any
concepts specific for that. We look at it on
a space-by-space basis. We would look at
what the airport calls for, what the space
calls for and what the location calls for.
We’re not looking to say, ‘Oh, we’re going
to put in a coffee shop within the news,’
for instance, unless there’s a specific
reason why that needs to happen.”
Paradies has combined news and gift
shops with books and coffee shops in
different markets. Such offerings are
included in such places as Auntie’s
Bookstore at Spokane International (GEG)
or in Dunkin’ Donuts Coffee at Sarasota
Bradenton International (SRQ) and
Hudson Group has several news and gift
stores that are combined with other
concepts. Pairing Hudson News stores with
Hudson Booksellers, Euro Café or Discover
stores in some cases makes sense to
maximize space or to fill an airport’s
requirements, the company says.
40
A R N AUGUST 2009
NewsLink Group LLC and its food
subsidiary PremAIR Hospitality
Group LLC combined to open a
NewsLink news and gift store that
also contains a Juan Valdez Café.
Company officials say the store
provides an ability to meet multiple
customer needs with a single location.
Southwest Florida International (RSW).
“We’re looking to expand that relationship,” he says. “We may look at other food
and beverage or coffee – certainly we would
look to expand that where it makes sense in
a particular airport.”
At the end of the day, it comes down to
offering airports and passengers whatever
is needed to keep them happy. Feuer drew
a parallel between such concepts and the
first airport DFW TravelMart convenience
store Paradies opened at Dallas/Fort
Worth International (DFW), where the
idea of providing passengers with onestop shopping has led to tremendous
success.
“We did a survey and it was incredible
from not only the employees and the
associates within the airports but the
airline staff and the international
terminal,” Feuer says. “We have expanded
that to three convenience stores. The
demographics and what that called for
make all the sense in the world there and
we’ve been extremely successful with it.”
Whenever the company gets an RFP, it
spends time poring over demographic
information such as business versus
leisure traffic, age, income and gender for
the given location in determining what will
work and what won’t.
“It goes back to it’s a case-by-case
basis,” Feuer says. “We research and say
‘Does this make sense here?’”
part of the airport’s desire to add local
flavor to its food and retail mix.
“We took our European background or
heritage and then found one of the bestknown coffee house brands in Atlanta and
proposed it in our package,” he says.
The concept, which will be under
construction soon and is scheduled to
open in November, is expected to provide
ambience and atmosphere remindful of a
European café.
“The offshoot of that is they have a fullservice bookstore. ... It all relates and
gives a sense of place,” he says.
Kinder says this concept broke new
ground for Areas in its dealings in U.S.
airports and adds that the company would
definitely create similar joint-use facilities
at ATL or other airports going forward.
“We would want to take a similar
approach to other airports to bring the
local sense of place to the airport so you
know which airport you were in,” Kinder
says. “The same thing could be done in
other airports with a similar type layout
and product offering.”
Cafe Intermezzo
Entering ATL Soon
Airport Officials Offer Perspective
As part of their joint bid at HartsfieldJackson Atlanta International (ATL), Areas
USA and Airport Retail Management
created Café Intermezzo, a café with seating
and ambience, that will also include a
bookstore and a full-service newsstand.
Café Intermezzo itself, which will be
operated by ARM, is an award-winning
concept on the street and has been a
landmark for 30 years with its off-airport
locations, says Tim Kinder, director of
merchandise for Areas.
The companies created the concept as
Hudson Group came up with the combo
news and gift/Discover Richmond/Kids
Works store in response to an RFP that
required local, regional and national brands
in a tight space, says Russ Peaden, director
of real estate and facilities at Richmond
International (RIC). The store has a mix of
books, news, gifts, and local and regional
sundry items, as well as a children’s section.
“They keep the product selection fresh,
they react to the market place and they
do a good job of developing relationships
with local vendors,” he says.
The combo store makes a lot of sense
for a small hub origination and destination
airport such as RIC due to the limited
number of venues, Peaden says.
“We are giving the traveling public more
choices,” Peaden says. “With our chosen
concessionaire, they have proven to be
very adept at managing the multipurpose
concepts.”
Richard White, vice president of
properties and business development at
Memphis International (MEM), says he
can see the appeal of combining store
locations, but he’d have some concerns –
especially if the single unit incorporates
both a food and a retail operation.
“I’ve always wondered how they work,”
he says. “The means in which you operate
them is totally different.”
For example, food and retail operators
have completely separate sets of concerns.
Food operators have to worry about
contaminated foods or spoiled milk and
about making sure they meet food
inspection requirements. Retailers have to
determine how long to keep products on
the shelf before putting them on clearance.
“I’ve got to be truthful,” White says. “I
like my retail guys doing retail and I like
my food guys doing food.”
The airport does have a CNBC News and
Gift store next to a baggage concept that
customers can reach from either entrance,
but they have separate cash registers.
“You don’t want to be in a line when
someone is trying to get a bag,” he says,
“We’re really busy when we’re busy.”
We’d like to hear your opinion
about this article. Please direct all
correspondence to Andrew Tellijohn at
andrew@airportrevenuenews.com.
AUGUST 2009 A R N
41