Le temps économique et le temps psychologique du voyageur dans un aéroport international

Abstract

For human kind, imaginary travel has always been a way to escape, dream, hope and meet others. However, traveling through airports is not very imaginary. It is where the beginning and end of a tangible service ‘the plane trip’ will take place. The airport terminal is a confined space that is imposed upon the traveler who has no control over the amount of time he/she will be spending there. This qualitative study is an exploratory one, with a sample of thirty five travelers. We drawed two traveler profiles. One is based on the hypothesis of Becker of economical time. The other is based on the hypothesis of Csikszentmihalyi, of psychological time. We analyze the results based on the following themes: Plane traveling, breaking from the everyday routines, the concept of 'time' in the terminal, the concept of 'activity', the types of travelers and their expectations regarding the location, meeting others and social bonding. We conclude with a model that we discuss from both a conceptual and a managerial perspective.