Sydney Airport Holdings Pty Ltd (ASX: SYD) has revealed a plan to grow its profit with Instagram.
Sydney Airport Holdings is the company that operates the Kingsford Smith Airport, it currently has a 99-year lease on the airport but it will revert back to government ownership at the end of this century. According to Sydney Airport, it generates $30.8 billion in economic activity a year, which is equivalent to 6.4% of the NSW economy.
Sydney Airport’s Instagram Plan
Sydney Airport is rebranding as ‘SYD’ to try to boost its image with Sydney people and it’s putting up images of iconic city locations like the Harbour Bridge onto its terminal walls, according to the Australian Financial Review.
It has apparently built a large (Tasmanian) oak wall at the international departures gate which attracts thousands of people each day to take selfies in front of it.
The AFR quoted Sydney Airport CEO Geoff Culbert talking about his desire to change the airport from an infrastructure asset into a community asset: “We’re trying to unlock this latent desire for people to be proud of their home airport.”
Talking about the wall, he said to the AFR: “It wasn’t cheap but so worth it. You can’t value everything in dollar terms. If we were making that decision purely on a cost basis we would have put a gyprock wall up there with a pretty basic sign rather than a 53-metre long Tasmanian oak wall which we’re really proud of, and it’s now become one of the most tagged places in Sydney on social media.
“That’s really important to us because when people depart on an overseas holiday, it’s a really exciting and emotional experience and they want to capture that moment when they leave – and now we’ve got a departures wall that we think gives them that opportunity to really heighten that moment.”
Is It A Good Idea?
If it works then it’s definitely a good idea. People are looking for experiences when they go travelling. That experience doesn’t have to start once they get to the destination, the experience includes the travelling to the location. And the airport is a big part of that.
Sydney Airport is seeing its domestic and total passengers decline regularly in the monthly passenger traffic numbers. It needs to do something to turn those numbers around.
With an income yield of just 4.8%, I think the yield has become too compressed for it to be a good value investment. For dividends and long term growth I would rather buy the reliable shares in the free report
below.
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