A Solid Company Ready to Accelerate Growth During 2021 Recovery

The 2020 business year has undoubtedly been the most challenging year in our company’s history – not only because of the impact of the pandemic on our commercial performance, but also due to the considerable number of changes implemented and the efforts made by all of you to adapt the company to the new business environment.

Today, having completed the restructuring, we are a solid, well-organized company, ready to accelerate sales and growth as soon as the recovery starts. While the environment is still dynamic and we are still seeing travel restrictions in place, the ongoing vaccination campaigns will contribute to improving travel conditions. This is the key element, as we already know that people want to start travelling again as soon as possible.

Important achievements in the 2020 business year

Given the extraordinary business environment seen in 2020, the impact on our performance was obviously considerable. In this context, our turnover reached CHF 2,561.1 million as compared to CHF 8,848.6 million in the previous year and equal to a decline of -71.1%. Organic growth for the year stood at -69.8%. On the positive side however, we have continued to expand our footprint with important new concessions in Turkey, Russia, Brazil, the US and of course in Hainan China, amongst others, and we also need to acknowledge the important achievements made with respect to securing the resilience of the company and creating a solid financial base on which to build our future. In this context, we have achieved overall savings of CHF 1,312.1 million and reached a solid liquidity position allowing us to navigate through the recovery phase and resume activities as a strong player of our industry.

Goals and steps to recovery during 2021 -2023

As you know, we have already shared with all of you the main goals and the development path for the next 3 years, which will guide us through the recovery and will allow us to emerge as a strong player in our industry. On top of a high level of clear communication and close alignment, the key to success will be our positive thinking and conviction in achieving our goals. We have defined five main elements, which are aimed at helping us effectively manage the recovery phase, whilst also assessing opportunities that allow us to further develop the company in new areas of activity, in new markets or adjacent channels of travel retail. These five initiatives or elements are:

• Acceleration of sales and repositioning of our commercial offer. This includes the verification of potentially changed customer shopping behaviors and the respective adaptation of our assortment and services.
• Assess and develop diversification opportunities into channels other than just travel retail, such as food & beverage, online, high-street operations etc.
• Analyze and develop digital technology with respect to data collection and management to accelerate sales through intensified customer engagement of new services.
• Expand our travel retail portfolio and footprint in all markets and with a particular focus in Asia.
• Adapt and revise our current business model as needed during the recovery phase, thus making sure that once the recovery starts, our business model and organizational structure can manage an increasing sales volume.

Strengthening the company in many directions

In this Dufry World edition you can see that we continue to shape and strengthen Dufry in many directions. Our entry into the duty-free market in Hainan, which is currently our industry’s hot-spot is important as, whilst generating sales, it also allows us to present Dufry in the most positive way to consumers and landlords in mainland China and to demonstrate our skills and know how in travel retail.

We continue to evolve our ESG engagement (environment, social and governance), incorporating the topic of diversity and inclusion in different parts of the company as the example of Hudson shows. We will also continue with the evolution and expansion of our women@dufry initiative in the coming months.

A good example of our ongoing digitalization of the Group is the “Just Walk Out” technology we have recently launched at our Dallas Love Field Airport operation through a collaboration with Amazon. Allowing customers to pay for their purchases without going to the till is an interesting service, as it both improves the shopping experience for the customers and allows our colleagues in the shop to dedicate more time to customer engagement.

Thank you for your support

I hope that all of you are - and continue to stay - in good health. It remains our priority to ensure we provide a safe and healthy working and shopping environment for all of our colleagues and customers and in this context, I want to thank all of you for your extraordinary efforts and dedication. I continue to see a strong focus and motivation to maintain our high level of attention to the business and the cost consciousness we have developed, which remains a key priority to take us through the recovery. Let’s maintain this positive attitude and continue to work closely together as a strong and effective team.

Kind regards,

Julián Díaz
Chief Executive Officer