Dear Travel Retail,
As the year draws to a close and terminals slow down just enough to let us think, this feels like the right moment to write you a Christmas letter.
Not to celebrate unconditionally. Not to complain either. But to pause, look around, and be honest.
You have proven once again that resilience is part of your DNA. Passenger numbers are back, sometimes beyond expectations. Airports are expanding, tenders are multiplying, brands are travelling again. On the surface, the machine is running.
Yet beneath that surface, there is a sense of fatigue. And, more worrying, a certain reluctance to change.
We are entering a new year where standing still may be more dangerous than making mistakes.
On the surface, the machine is running. Yet beneath that surface, there is a sense of fatigue. And, more worrying, a certain reluctance to change.
Travellers have changed faster than you have. Their expectations are shaped outside the airport, by hospitality, by wellness, by service cultures that are far more demanding than before. They arrive informed, impatient, and less forgiving. They compare more than they browse. They judge more than they discover.
Meanwhile, too many concepts still rely on the same formulas, the same narratives, the same comfort zones. Assortments feel safe but repetitive. Experiences are polished but rarely surprising. Service is often correct, sometimes efficient, but too rarely memorable.
The risk for the year ahead is not lack of traffic. It is irrelevance.
A market that reacts slowly risks becoming decorative rather than meaningful. A place people pass through, not a place they remember. And in a world where choice is everywhere, forgettability is the real threat.
Travellers have changed faster than you have…They compare more than they browse. They judge more than they discover.
There are also structural pressures that will not wait. Rising costs, staffing challenges, fragile margins, and growing scrutiny on value for money. Pretending that volume alone will compensate for weak experience is an illusion we can no longer afford.
And yet, there is reason for optimism, if courage follows awareness.
The opportunity is still there. Travel retail remains one of the most powerful physical touchpoints between brands and global travellers. No other channel combines anticipation, time availability, and emotional openness in the same way. But this only works if we stop treating passengers as captive audiences and start treating them as guests.
This means investing seriously in frontline capability, not just training hours but mindset and empowerment. It means simplifying ranges instead of inflating them. It means choosing clarity over excess, relevance over repetition. It means accepting that luxury today is less about display and more about how people feel when they leave the store.
The new year will reward those who act, not those who wait for consensus. Those who experiment thoughtfully, not those who hide behind benchmarks. Those who accept that improvement is uncomfortable by nature.
Travel retail remains one of the most powerful physical touchpoints between brands and global travellers. But this only works if we stop treating passengers as captive audiences and start treating them as guests.
So this Christmas wish is a demanding one.
May the industry find the courage to question itself before others do it for us. May we listen more carefully to travellers rather than to our own assumptions. May we move faster, with intention, not noise.
If that happens, the coming year will not just be another recovery chapter. It could be the beginning of a more mature, more relevant, and more credible phase for travel retail.
Season’s wishes to everyone who works behind the scenes, on the shop floor, in terminals, offices and time zones across the world. The effort is real, even when results are uneven.
Let us make next year count, not by doing more, but by doing better.