Philadelphia International Airport has selected Temple University’s School of Sport, Tourism and Hospitality Management (STHM) to conduct the year-long “PHL passenger survey” consulting project. STHM’s U.S.-Asia Center for Tourism and Hospitality Research and the Department of Tourism and Hospitality Management will spend a year evaluating, analyzing and reporting on passengers’ expectations and experiences of the airport onsite.
Principal investigators (PIs) for the study are Xiang (Robert) Li, chair of Tourism and Hospitality Management and Center director; Associate Professor Yang Yang, executive director of the Center; Professor Emeritus Betsy Barber; Associate Professor Laurie Wu; and Assistant Professor Lindsey Lee. Barber was crucial in initiating the partnership with the airport back when the Center hosted the China Tourism Forum in 2019.
The survey focuses on passengers’ satisfaction, travel behavior, information usage, perceptions, needs and demographics with regard to airport amenities and services. “It also brings important experiential learning opportunities to graduate and undergraduate students,” says Yang.
The Center has already recruited the first cohort of student workers to assist with the survey, which will be disseminated within the terminal starting in January. This will comprise the first phase of data, which the Center’s graduate student will help to analyze as part of a report to be published in 2022.