Home to the Northern Lights

Sweden is a great country widely known for a number of things. Despite its relatively small population – ten million – Sweden has made many contributions to the world. Names like Ingrid Bergman, Alfred Nobel, Abba or Avicii are just a few examples in the cultural field. Nevertheless, it is also a country associated with design (from Volvo or Ikea to H&M) and innovation (Skype, Spotify or the popular Candy Crush).

The renewal of the concession agreements to operate the duty-free stores in the eight Swedish airports managed by Swedavia in this country, for another seven years, came with the challenge of refurbishing and upgrading the stores, and so far, nine of them (located in Arlanda, Göteborg Landvetter and Bromma airports) have been completed: a great opportunity to introduce that Swedish flavor to our stores and reinforce the sense of place to improve the customer experience and enhance the passenger flow through the space.

So, which element could it be that would best connect these airport stores with Sweden? The answer was “floating in the air”: The northern lights and the Swedish natural landscape – blended with the above-mentioned exquisite design and technology – were the perfect mix.

“Look up!” Concept Design
Sweden is a great destination for seeing the northern lights − or aurora borealis −, an amazing astronomical phenomenon visible from September until March in the very northern (and southern) latitudes. Scientifically, the bright dancing lights of the aurora are actually collisions between electrically charged particles from the sun that enter the earth’s atmosphere. The result of these collisions are lights that appear in the sky in many forms and displaying different colors, mainly pale green and pink.

The northern lights are the connecting element across the main shop of Stockholm Arlanda Airport – Sweden’s main airport and our landmark store in this territory. Supported with other elements very much connected with Sweden – such as the forests (that cover the vast majority of the territory) and the ice – different tones of the northern lights cover the store ceiling acting as themes for the different categories of the store.

Spirit of Sweden complements the strong sense of place of the Arlanda stores, as it features a unique design inspired by Nordic territories both in the design and in the product mix – which includes souvenirs and Swedish food.

A Different Approach
The new store is not just about design and the Arlanda main store is part of a new commercial concept, developed in cooperation with Swedavia, aimed at providing passengers with a new experience – an ambition that is also to be brought to life in the Göteborg Landvetter Airport. This new concept encompasses an innovative and exclusive product mix, as well as stronger brand personalization of the store. In the product selection, efforts have been made to adjust the offer to one of the fastest growing target groups in travel retail – millennials.

The new approach also comes with enhanced in-store communication, improved services and the support of RED by Dufry – which is being introduced across all Swedish airports – as a vehicle to better communicate with customers and deliver improved value and benefits to everyone shopping in our stores.

Team Commitment
Big or small, any refurbishment is a painful process for any operation, especially when you do not have the option of shutting down temporarily while the work is being carried out. And despite the Swedish operation having undergone the largest refurbishment since Dufry (through Nuance) started to operate this business in 2001, servicing customers’ needs, even when the store was not there, remained as the main priority. Moreover, results prove the success of this focused approach.

Impeccable coordination of the shop development, and of the commercial and operations teams at local, division and global levels, has permitted Dufry to move all the Swedish stores up a gear and take travel retail in this country to a different level. Congratulations to everyone involved!

By Jorge Muniz