The Annual Travel Retail Industry Networking Marathon

Every year, thousands of travel retail experts from around the globe meet in Cannes to showcase brands and trends, negotiate, celebrate, and network at the annual Tax Free World Association (TFWA) global event.

This year was no different: the show attracted over 7,500 visitors, amongst them a team of around 70 Dufry colleagues, based in locations from Vancouver to Russia.

As always, every second of the day was filled with meetings, presentations, and workshops while the evenings were occupied with brand presentations, networking events, and the opportunity to meet with colleagues and business partners who are not normally on the same continent, let alone in the same time zone.

So, well prepared for the week ahead, the Dufry team put on their walking shoes and headed out on their 2019 journey across the nearly 25,000m² of exhibition space that hosts the TFWA World Exhibition & Conference. Here are the highlights…

By the Trade for the Trade
Erik Juul-Mortensen, President of the TFWA for 19 years, stepped down at the end of last year, and this was Alain Maingreaud’s first year as TFWA President.

As is customary for the person holding this role, he opened the TFWA World Conference & Exhibition 2019 with a ‘state of the industry’ speech. He gave two direct key messages: 1) that the travel retail industry lacks reliable data to be able to paint a clear picture of the current situation and future outlook, and 2) the importance of investing in sustainability.

It should be mentioned that the TFWA is a not-for-profit organization that is run by and for industry players. About the first point, Maingreaud’s message was clear: without sufficient and reliable data from all of the industry stakeholders, the TFWA is not in a position to help guide, support, and protect the interests of the travel retail business; so as it stands, any efforts are blind. For any other billion-dollar industry, this would be unimaginable.

The second point was also crystal clear: governments, non-profit organizations and most importantly travelers themselves are asking for us to ‘clean up’ the aviation and maritime industries, which are perceived as having a big impact on climate change. What is each of us doing to help?

The main Dufry event
Following a long-standing tradition that brand and airport partners now have firmly in their calendars, on the Monday evening Dufry hosted its annual brand and airport partner cocktail event.

The event is a networking opportunity for the most senior Dufry management to meet in a speedy and efficient way with the most senior management of the brands and airports that we partner with. Having this group of people in the same room represents a unique opportunity, so brands are delighted to be invited and demand to attend from senior executives always outstrips capacity.

In his speech, Julián Díaz thanked our partners for their support and underlined the hard work being carried out with our landlords to defend the contracts we have and keep on expanding. He also highlighted the importance we place in having new and most importantly exclusive products in our stores to offer customers the most exciting and unique experience, and the value of our strong partnerships in order to achieve this.

Recognition for Dufry colleagues
Last but not least, there were several ‘wins’ to be celebrated for Dufry teams and individuals across the business.

Dufry was delighted to win in two categories of this year's Sunglasses Vision 2020 Awards: 'Best Dedicated Sunglasses Sales Team' for its team at Zurich Airport and 'Best Marketing Activity: On-Airport'.

The Sunglasses Vision 2020 Workshop & Awards are a category initiative co-sponsored and judged by leading sunglasses suppliers De Rigo, Essilor, Kering Eyewear, Luxottica, Marchon, Marcolin, Maui Jim, and Safilo. Their objective is to “reward excellence in sunglasses retail, shining the spotlight on the most progressive travel retailers in one of the channel’s consistently fastest-growing categories”.

In a new twist this year, each retailer was allowed to enter only one submission per award category, and, crucially, the previous year's winners were not able to win an award from the same category in which they were successful the previous year.

As Dufry was the winner of the top retailer award in 2018, “Sunglasses Retailer of the Year (Turnover Over US$2 billion), this year, we were invited to pass the baton to the 2019 winner.

At the Frontier Awards, Duty Free News International (DFNI) magazine’s annual awards ceremony, the Mondelez entry for a joint Dufry-Cadbury Premier League activation in the ‘Supplier Campaign of the Year’ category received the highly commended prize, another example of the close collaborative relationship between Dufry and its brand partners.

Jean-Paul Hewlett (Retail Manager, Dufry) was one of the eight winners of ‘Talent of Tomorrow’, an award that recognizes the achievements of young people (under 35) in travel retail and duty free and that represent the industry’s talent pipeline and next generation of future leaders.

Sarah Branquinho was given the award for ‘Outstanding Contribution’ to the industry following her many years as a key player in travel retail and a staunch defender of its interests.

We are extremely proud to have the talents of our exceptional colleagues recognized and ask everyone to give huge congratulations to all those who received prizes, either individually or as part of a team.

TFWA 2019 ended on that happy note. Only 312 days to go until TFWA 2020.

We are counting the days!

By Sherin Branquinho