ABSTRACT
Airport marketing only really emerged as a field of interest to researchers during the 1990s. Even up until the 1980s, the general view was that airports were natural monopolies, and therefore not in a position to influence target markets through marketing (Halpern and Graham, 2013). Early research on airport marketing challenges the traditional view. For instance, Tretheway (1998) debates if airport marketing is an oxymoron. He concludes that it is not, and that as a result of changes taking place in their business environment, airports are increasingly exposed to competitive forces (see also Chapter 10) that can be exploited through marketing. Evidence of airport competition and the need for marketing is provided in later studies (e.g. Thelle et al., 2012; Tretheway and Kincaid, 2010).
