I have recently returned from an excellent week at the Trinity Forum hosted by The Moodie Davitt Report in Ho Chi Minh City. As always, this was one of the best events of the travel retail year, providing insights and expertise from across the travel retail and airport business. My thanks, as ever, to Martin Moodie, Dermot Davitt and their team for an excellent event.
What especially delighted me was to see the importance and spotlight given to experience and people at the event. As we look to shape a bright future for travel retail it is encouraging to see stakeholders finally coming to agree that people and experience must be at the heart of our offer and our plans. As Dubai Airport’s CEO Paul Griffiths stated: “We are in the hospitality business.”
The importance of getting this right was, for me, highlighted by the data from ACI which was shared at the conference and which shows that retail is no longer the biggest non-aeronautical revenue contributor for airports worldwide. While in 2019, retail accounted for 27% of non-aeronautical revenue, today it is 20%, falling behind car parking, which has climbed from 21% to 24%. Interestingly, with the focus we put on it, F&B remains at 6%.
It seems that we must, as Nestlé’s Nicola Wells argued, reinvigorate our market, and I heartily agree with Lagardère’s CEO Dag Rasmussen who called for the industry to not be predictable. To deliver something truly special for shoppers, our marketplace must be unique, tailored and exciting – and all of that begins with the people on the ground.
Dubai Duty Free CEO Ramesh Cidambi argued persuasively that price increases and dropping penetration and spend can only be turned around by fully engaging and encouraging frontline teams, they are the ones who can take our offer to the next level. It was a point made in what was, for me, the best panel of the event: Future Proofing the Travel Retail Opportunity. Newmark’s Simon Black is absolutely right that we must put people at the heart of our offer, with a focus on passengers, partners and – vitally – employees.
This is perfectly in line with our view here at 2.0 & Partners, where we have dedicated much time to the creation of bespoke training platforms for the travel retail market which help to equip frontline staff with the insights and skills needed to unlock the exquisite in-store experience which shoppers have come to expect and demand. Our new Chinese Excellence Academy is the latest addition to our Customer eXperience Management (CXM) suite and we have already seen great results with our offline workshops with airport partners, as our expert team share the understandings and skills which help to boost the service offer for returning Chinese shoppers.
Technology has rightly become a core part of our market – as it has our everyday lives – but Simon Black was right when he suggested it cannot be at the expense of people. As I have previously argued that price must be held up as a key factor in travel retail alongside – rather than in opposition to – experience and exclusivity, we must remember that technological innovation must not come at the price of less focus on our people. They are our greatest asset.
As always, the Trinity Forum gave much food for thought and inspiration for future plans in this market, and I urge all other delegates, and the wider travel retail industry to carry this message forward: ours is a business by people, for people and about people. We must never turn away from that.