Location intelligence company AdNear has released its JAPAC Traveller Report, which goes deep into traveler engagement with smartphone and apps across twelve of the biggest regional airport hubs.
Overall, the report first broke down how each surveyed region interacts with TV, laptops, smartphones and tablets. This set some context on the background to the airport-specific data, showing both how APAC fits in overall and how each region prefers to consume content on screens.
JAPAC clocks about five percent more time spent on devices than the global average.
After taking a look at the overall averages, the report analyzed 12 airports and detailed device engagement by gender, most popular travel times, repeat travelers, average time spent in the airport, and top app categories, among others.
Here's a breakdown of some of the more interesting airport findings, which saw an overall regional average of 65 minutes spent in airports with 30 Internet request per user reaching 20% of the users connected to the web.
Engagement by gender
Before breaking it down into digital engagement, the report laid out the gender spread for different areas in the regional survey. India saw the highest discrepancy, with four times as many make travelers as female; Australia was the least disparate, with 1.5 times the number of male travelers than female.
Engagement by age
Different age groups interact in unique ways, and the survey found the unsurprising result that the majority of digital engagement lies with the younger generations. Japan had the highest engagement of the 16-24 generation out of all regions.
Airport specifics
After identifying the overall country-specific data, the report dives into how each individual airport looks. The most interesting part of this is the audience engagement piece, which shows how different cohorts are engaging with their digital devices.
The information here is particularly relevant to those travel startups and app developers seeking an engaged traveler audience on location in airports. For anyone in the gaming, social and entertainment spaces, this information provides the location relevance that could help boost conversions and increase downloads and revenues of traveler-targeted products and services.
We've pulled out three areas that are especially interesting: Australia, Singapore, and Hong Kong Macau.
The Sydney vs Melbourne comparison is especially intriguing, as each of those cities prides itself on a quite distinct identity from the other.
The most engaged at the Sydney airport are both more likely to be affluent and a student.
Affluent travelers are 3.2 times as likely to be engaging on mobile, and students are 3x as likely. While the average time spent is quite low compared to some other airports, there are plenty of opportunity to engage here on social apps - the number one category for those surveyed.
Singapore's Changi sits in an interesting position as a hub to much of Southeast Asia. There are plenty of transit flights within this airport, and thus the airport enjoys one of the longest in-airport times - the average traveller is on property for 97 minutes.
This long timeframe is reflected in the top app category, gaming, as travelers sit and kill time. Social apps and entertainment are also very popular, marking the means of passing the time for the majority of travelers.
Given its status as a global transit hub, Singapore also has a higher percentage of repeat travelers. These road warriors also make excellent targets for travel companies seeking engagement, especially as 15% of those travelers are aged 37-50. An impressive showing, as the overall level of engagement for that demographic is generally lower than the smartphone-clutching 25-36 crowd.
In Hong Kong and Macau, the results also demonstrate an interesting split. Macau sees a higher engagement with gaming apps at airports - perhaps given the nearby nature of a casino/resort town, while also enjoying a long wait time for the average traveler.
More homemakers, affluents and professionals are also engaged in Hong Kong when compared to Macau.
Download the report in its entirety here, which features audience engagement statistics from each of the 12 surveyed airports according to the above breakdowns - more than we can cover here.