The inclination for travellers to avoid lengthy transfer times from airport car parks to terminals has lead to an increase in popularity for the ‘meet and greet’ services that are currently on offer from several of the airport parking operators.

The ‘meet and greet’ service, which involves a member of the parking company’s staff meeting the traveller directly outside their departure terminal and taking responsibility for parking their car, and a reversal of the service for the travellers return journey, has taken a 9.6 percent greater slice of the airport parking market in the last 12 months, according to data supplied by Looking4parking.com, an airport parking price comparison site.

The company compared figures taken between May and July this year with the same period last year, when analysing the three biggest parking industry segments: on-site parking at airports, off-airport park and ride, and meet and greet. Meet and greet grew from 49.17 percent to 58.72 percent year-on-year, gaining from park and ride, which was down 5.2 percent, from 36.08 percent to 30.92 percent, and on site parking that was down by 4.4 percent, from 14.75 percent to 10.37 percent.

Martin Mansell, managing director of meet and greet parking company, StressFreeAirportParking.com, said, ‘We are experiencing rapid, year-on-year growth, in the last 12 months alone we have increased direct and travel agent sales by 54 percent in total, and that upward curve shows no signs of faltering. ‘We believe the trend is being fuelled by word-of-mouth and the nub of that referral conversation is price. The cost of meet and greet parking has fallen significantly in the last five years and now, in many cases, it is no more expensive than standard airport car parking.’