CREATING THE SENSE OF PLACE AND ITS IMPACT ON PASSENGER PERCEPTION AT A BRAZILIAN AIRPORT

The standardized planning of airport terminals, over the years, has made airports become a generic building, so one airport ends up not being different from another. The Sense of Place is a framework to express the local culture, which, when used in airports, connects passengers to the place where the airport is inserted, making it a unique place. This study aims to investigate the use of airport branding as a tool to improve the passenger experience and promote the Sense of Place. This research hypothesis is “the Sense of Place creation can improve the perception of the passenger about the quality of the airport”. In addition to the literature review, a case study was conducted with the means to identify the strategies used by the Belo Horizonte International Airport/Brazil to create a sense of place. A hypothesis test was also conducted to analyze the difference in means of passenger satisfaction rates, throughout the periods before and after the implementation, to verify how those strategies could have affected passenger satisfaction. The results suggest that the sense of place elements may indeed enhance the passenger experience in airports, improving the airport evaluation.