Using data to drive decision-making makes a lot of sense, especially when you ask the right questions to the right audience.
Recently, a regional airport wanted to understand how to better align its offerings to its market area. Cue a well-crafted market research study to the rescue! Learn more about the goals, objectives, approach, and results of this airport study below.
Objectives of the Regional Airport Survey
One of the most important steps when starting an online survey project is to define goals and expectations for a successful project.
This step begins during the proposal phase but also carries through to the kickoff phase of a project.
During both of these steps, it’s important to have a clear understanding of the information being sought, why it’s needed, and how it will be used. The answers to these questions ensure that the research and client teams fully align on the project.
Objectives for a recent online regional airport survey project included:
- Validating reason(s) for choosing the airport and other competitive airports
- Understanding flight volume among leisure and business travelers specific to destinations
- Measuring the appeal of particular destination(s) and its impact on the usage of the airport
- Validating critical levers and messaging that will drive more traffic to the airport
- Obtaining a read on messaging/creative to see what resonates most
- Profiling the airport user, including opportunities to market to mini-segments
- Supporting ongoing digital marketing efforts using data to drive decisions
Remember, goal setting is a crucial step in the market research process. A huge benefit to working with a market research company is the ability to set custom research objectives and design a survey to meet those needs.
Approach to Conducting the Regional Airport Survey
To address the objectives at hand, Drive Research conducted a questionnaire following our in-house online survey process. The stages of the online survey are outlined below.
Step 1. Meet with the online survey team
We held a kick-off meeting with the regional airport stakeholders to discuss project details, target audience, desired insights, and other objectives. Throughout the call we were able to offer expert recommendations and guidance for what their team can expect.
Step 2. Design and program the survey
Then, our online survey company programs, and tests the survey, ensuring it works correctly on both mobile and desktop. The client’s feedback was incorporated before the survey went live.
Example survey questions to consider using for a regional airport survey include:
- Which of the following airports are you aware of?
- Which of the following airports have you booked travel from in the last 5 years (i.e., between 2019 and 2024)?
- Which of the following is your preferred airport?
- Why do you prefer [insert preferred airport]? Enter your response.
- In a typical year (excluding Covid-19), how many times do you fly through each of the following airports?
- How do you typically travel to and from each of the following airports?
Step 3. Distribute the survey
The regional airport survey was first soft launched to a smaller sample before distributing to the full audience. As time progressed we monitored fieldwork and cleaned the data for fraudulent responses to ensure accurate data collection.
Step 4. Analyze + debrief the findings
After data collection, Drive Research analyzed the results and prepared a market research report, offering a comprehensive detailed report.
Lastly, our team reviewed the market research report with the client during a debrief meeting, where findings were explained and actionable insights were provided to ensure understanding and application.
Regional Airport Survey Results
The survey took an average of 9 minutes to complete and included 34 questions. Fieldwork for the survey began on March 18 and lasted until April 5, 2024.
While the results of the survey remain confidential to the client, the report for this regional airport study included 1) key findings, including data visualizations and personas, 2) online data portals, 3) a CSV file with all survey responses, and 4) a list of respondents willing to participate in future research.
Key findings included:
- Airport preferences
- Airport satisfaction comparisons
- Desired changes
- Reactions from an ad test
- Flight volume analysis
Contact Our Airport Market Research Company
Drive Research is a full-service market research company specializing in qualitative and quantitative methodologies. Our team partners with airports and aviation companies throughout the world to deliver high quality data to drive decision making.
To learn more about our services, contact our team today.
- 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.
