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to synchronise – their breathing, pupils, even patterns of neural activity become more similar. That doesn’t happen due to a push notification, which is why I’d argue the value of a face-to-face exchange hasn’t fallen – it’s risen, because scarcity has made it precious. A shop or an employee offering a real conversation is offering something a traveller genuinely cannot get from their phone.” When travel breaks habits, brands have a moment to connect Travel retail often has only a limited window in which to capture a traveller’s attention. Duhigg shared some compelling insights into what behavioural science tells us about how businesses can make those moments more meaningful and memorable. “Two things happen to us under stress, and travel produces plenty of it,” Duhigg said. “The first is that we fall back on our habits. When we’re anxious or depleted – and an airport often provides lots of both – the deliberate part of the brain steps back and the automatic part takes over. We reach for what we always reach for. The second is more hopeful: habits are anchored to context, and travel demolishes context. The same disruption that makes us reflexive also leaves us unusually open to forming a new pattern. The difference here is often how a person treats us. In ‘The Power of Habit’ I wrote about Starbucks training staff for precisely these moments – not scripts for selling, but habits for responding well to someone who’s upset. The moments travellers remember are the kind word. That’s where real loyalty comes from.” Indeed, habits are powerful in shaping what consumers buy and this creates opportunities for travel retailers and brands seeking to influence purchasing behaviour. “Roughly 40% of what we do on a given day isn’t a decision at all,” Duhigg said. “It’s a habit – a cue, a routine, a reward – running below our conscious awareness. In retail that’s enormous, because most purchases aren’t chosen so much as repeated. But the finding that matters most for the duty free industry is the second one: habits are bound to place and circumstance. Change someone’s environment and the habit becomes malleable. People who move houses, change jobs, or have a child are when brand loyalties shift. Travel does a smaller version of the same thing. The other lesson is that we accept the new only when it’s wrapped in the familiar. Radio programmers discovered a strange song sells if it’s sandwiched between two hits. So, the traveller in front of you is genuinely available to try something – provided the unfamiliar is made to feel familiar.” Personalisation works best when customers feel known, not figured out Personalisation is a major focus for the industry. Brands can use what they know about consumers to create more relevant experiences without making those interactions feel intrusive or overly engineered. “In ‘The Power of Habit’ I wrote about a statistician at Target who could work out from a woman’s shopping basket that she was pregnant, sometimes before she’d told her family,” Duhigg shared. “The model was accurate. And that was the problem, because it left customers unnerved. What Target eventually did was slip the baby coupons in among ads for lawnmowers and wine glasses, so the offer looked like coincidence. Redemption went up. The targeting hadn’t changed. Only the visible evidence had. The line isn’t between knowing a lot and knowing a little. It’s between being known and being figured out. People like being remembered. They don’t like being deduced.” As younger, digitally native generations become an increasingly important part of the travelling consumer base, there are important changes in how they discover, evaluate and engage with brands. “Digitally native travellers are the most sophisticated customers our industries have ever served – and the most sceptical, for exactly the same reason,” Duhigg explained. “They’ve grown up inside personalisation, so they can see the machinery. They know the warm email was automated, the recommendation was modelled, and the agent on the other end of the chat may not be a person at all. They’ve seen how fast a ‘relationship’ turns out to be a workflow. That produces a particular wariness – not cynicism about products, but cynicism about being addressed. They assume they’re talking to a system until shown otherwise, which, surprisingly, is good news for physical retail. The one thing that cannot be simulated at scale is a person who is genuinely paying attention. For this generation, human contact isn’t nostalgia – rather, it’s the differentiator.” Understanding the traveller behind the transaction In an environment where consumers are constantly competing for attention, Duhigg shared some powerful insights into what travel retailers and brands most often misunderstand about effective communication and consumer engagement. “The most consistent finding in ‘Supercommunicators’ is that conversations fail when two people are having different ones,” Duhigg said. “One party is practical – they are focused on features, price, provenance. The other party is emotional: they are looking for a sense of luxury or relaxation. When those conversations don’t match, nothing lands, however good the message. A traveller buying perfume for a mother she hasn’t seen in two years isn’t in a transaction. She’s in an emotional conversation. And so, an employee should ask a deeper question – not what are you looking for, but who is this for? Emotional connection isn’t a soft addition to selling. It’s what makes selling possible.” Duhigg added that airports are among the most emotionally dense places we ever pass through, but, as travellers, we often insist on treating them as logistical hubs. “Someone is going to a wedding. Someone is going to the hospital. Someone hasn’t seen their mother in three years. Nearly everyone is a little anxious, a little tired, a little unmoored – and almost nobody speaks to them as people. They are merely passengers. The commercial case is real – connection builds loyalty in a way discounting never will. But the better case is simpler. You can make someone’s day, and change what they remember about a trip, and that’s a gift to them, and us.” Charles Duhigg, Bestselling author and journalist, The New Yorker: “The line isn’t between knowing a lot and knowing a little. It’s between being known and being figured out. People like being remembered. They don’t like being deduced.” Tuesday 29 September 2026 20 T F W A D A I L Y