As travellers increasingly more search significant stories all over their trips, airports are evolving from puts folks go via into puts that assist form the commute enjoy itself. The most recent ASQ International Traveller Survey highlights rising call for for extra human-centred, customized and noteworthy airport stories, as passengers glance past potency on my own. Reflecting this shift, Iceland’s KEF Airport is reimagining the function of the airport with the release of its Bless Programme, the sector’s first on-site airport excursion sequence, and developing significant engagement for guests of every age, with kids and fogeys invited to assist form a extra family-friendly airport enjoy.
Via The Bless Programme, KEF could also be changing into an extension of the vacation spot itself. With bless translating as good-bye in Icelandic, the complimentary excursions (lasting roughly half-hour) had been designed to polish a mild on Icelandic tradition and traditions. Guests can pattern native delicacies ready through Hafliði Halldórsson, chef to the President of Iceland, revel in expertly crafted drinks with Iceland-based bartender Georg Leite, discover Icelandic artwork and design with dressmaker and exhibition curator Hlin Helga Gudlaugsdottir, and uncover Icelandic rhythms with drummer and song promoter Sigtryggur Baldursson.In combination, those stories be offering an original and noteworthy farewell, giving travellers a last style of Iceland sooner than they leave.
Throughout the addition of the vibrant Tulipopland play house, designed through ÞYKJÓ in collaboration with Tulipop, the airport additionally provides more youthful travellers an imaginative surroundings impressed through Icelandic creativity and storytelling. The gap displays KEF’s wider imaginative and prescient of making sure the airport enjoy itself turns into a memorable a part of the vacation. The airport lately bolstered this dedication via its participation in DesignMarch, one in every of Reykjavík’s main artwork and design fairs, the place it hosted a family-focused workshop exploring how airports can also be higher designed for kids.
Centred across the query “How can airports be higher designed for kids?” the classes inspired households to reconsider how more youthful travellers enjoy airports and what may make trips more straightforward and extra stress-free, with the findings highlighting rising call for for areas that spark creativeness and inspire open-ended inventive play, inclusive environments that believe the desires of travellers of every age, and spaces that offer each kids and fogeys with alternatives to loosen up and decompress from the stresses frequently related to commute.
Those insights support a much broader shift happening around the sector, the place airports are increasingly more recognising that live time isn’t merely ready time, however a chance to create extra attractive stories.
Karitas Kjartansdóttir, Industry Building Specialist at Keflavík Airport, stated:
“At KEF, we would like each and every traveller to really feel welcome, and developing stress-free stories for each oldsters and babies is a key a part of development memorable trips. Airports want to attempt to grow to be truly entertaining areas for households. Because the pandemic, KEF has recorded a fifteen% building up within the time passengers spend between safety and boarding, developing new alternatives to supply stories that encourage, entertain and replicate the original persona of Iceland.
For us, that suggests developing stories that replicate Icelandic tradition and creativity, whether or not via our Tulipopland play house, the release of the Bless Programme or the numerous different tasks we proceed to broaden around the airport. Via our fresh kinfolk workshops, we discovered there’s rising call for for each stress-free and inventive play areas, and we will be able to proceed exploring how those insights can also be built-in into the airport enjoy.
Situated on Iceland’s Reykjanes Peninsula throughout the Reykjanes UNESCO International Geopark, KEF provides guests an instantaneous connection to the rustic’s atypical herbal surroundings. Surrounded through lava fields, volcanic landscapes and geothermal wonders, the airport supplies a robust sense of position, permitting travellers to start experiencing Iceland lengthy sooner than they achieve their ultimate vacation spot.”
