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Competition between airports on the west coast of North America has always been fierce. From southern California up to Canada, the major Pacific coastal airports at Los Angeles, San Francisco [...]

The premium cigars market has been reborn over the past 10 years. The US cigar boom of the mid 1990s introduced a fresh audience to the pleasures of smoking and [...]

Many companies reliant on EU travel-retail are only just recovering from the abolition of duty-free sales within the region in 1999. Yet this month 10 new states join the Union [...]

In a unique industry such as airport retail, there are few ready-made solutions. Airports and retailers seeking a better way of working together have experimented with various forms of cooperation, [...]

The off-airport duty-free sector in Australia and New Zealand has always been a challenging business. Acting more as shop windows and order points than traditional retail outlets, downtown duty-free stores [...]

Malaysian tour operators claim that their country enjoys the best of all possible worlds. It is a multicultural haven with the beaches and cities to rival those of its neighbours [...]

Although growth in the cigar segment may not be anywhere near the post-US cigar boom years of the mid-1990s, it has still managed to outperform total travel-retail sales and has [...]

As storms go, this one was pretty close to perfection. War in Iraq, the outbreak of SARS in Toronto, mad cow disease, forest fires, floods and an economic slowdown in [...]

For airports that once earned their revenues mainly from freight services, the boom in low cost and charter airlines in recent years has been a godsend. The budget carriers' quest [...]

In the aftermath of 2001's terrorist attacks, Boston Logan International airport landlord Massport had to reassess its development plans while it fought to stay in business. But after a solid [...]

You don't need statistics on duty-free sales, concession revenues or passenger numbers to work out that the American travel-retail industry has had a tough time over the past few years. [...]

Duty-free operators around the world breathed a collective sigh of relief last May, when the World Health Organisation (WHO) published the final version of its Framework Convention on Tobacco Control [...]

Until recently, premium cigars from anywhere other than Cuba were held in the same sort of contempt that Cognac lovers reserve for Taiwanese brandy. But since the mid-1990s--when cigars could [...]

The location for this year's Middle East Duty Free Association (MEDFA) conference, Dubai, has always been a crossroads for trade between Europe and Asia. Last month's conference proved that it [...]

The US market that spawned the international cigar boom in the 1990s is witnessing a mini renaissance. Small cigars, their a favourite of European smokers, are finally making their mark [...]

This year two of the big premium cigar suppliers have introduced their first travel-retail exclusive products. At virtually the same time General Cigar Co launched its Three Kings range of [...]

The unprecedented increase in Chinese travel in recent years has led to the appearance of several brands in international duty-free markets that were once unknown outside China. Cigarette brands are [...]

Earlier this year outgoing The Nuance Group CEO Europe Carlo Bernasconi voiced the concerns of the travel-retail industry when he spoke of 'the age of cheap'. He explained that travelling [...]

With a handful of brands dominating the market, it is not surprising that there have been fewer cigarette launches in recent years than in any other product category. Instead, leading [...]

For the sake of not jinxing it, it seems sufficient to say that a recovery in the North American travel industry might be about to happen. The region's airlines are [...]

A decree passed by a Delhi high court judge last month summed up the frustration felt by foreign firms trying to tap into the potentially vast resources of the Indian [...]

'A few years ago a duty-free shopper would walk into a musky old shack and see a guy in a floral shirt behind the counter with bottles of Jim Beam [...]

Businesses trying to get along in the travel-retail industry are no strangers to tight regulation. And for the most part a rapidly growing paper mountain is seen as a necessary [...]

The Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) has attracted two companies in its tender for a specialist cigar boutique at Singapore Changi terminal three. Phoenicia Trading, which operates the Casa [...]

In this month's confectionery and fine foods report, DFNI reports on Gaia Trade, the new Scandinavian agency specialising in organic and ethical products. The trend for ethical consumption, like that [...]

INDIA. The frenetic pace of development in the Indian duty-free market quickened this month as Alpha Airports Group and The Nuance Group emerged as the first international travel retailers to [...]

For a trade that is in such close communication with local Customs authorities, it is strange how often directives issued by Customs departments or closely related government ministries have threatened [...]

INDONESIA/PHILIPPINES. The proposed joint venture between Jakarta Sukarno-Hatta International airport retailer PT Fortune Star Duty Free and Landmark Duty Free owner Philippine Regent Asia Group has broken down. Under the [...]

MALAYSIA. Kuala Lumpur International airport's (KLIA) extensive retail renovation has been delayed until 2008 after the Ministry of Tourism raised strong objections to starting work on schedule earlier this year. [...]

CAMBODIA. Dufry Group is forecasting that its operations at Phnom Penh and Siem Reap-Angkor International airports will continue the growth recorded over the past two years, as the number of [...]

Amid the global panic following the foiled terrorist plot in the UK on August 10, few sane voices could be heard. Instead there was the usual reactionary nonsense. 'The days [...]

INTERNATIONAL. Leading operators are calling for a sensible approach to security regulations in the wake of the foiled terror plot at UK airports on August 10. The call follows weeks [...]

Speculation recently in the Spanish press indicates that one of Europe's great national airport networks could soon come under new ownership. If that story sounds familiar, and you thought the [...]

Recent announcements from The Nuance Group, India Tourism Development Corp (ITDC) and Flemingo International underline the important role that cooperation between retailers will play in the development of India's duty-free [...]

One of the most fascinating aspects of our industry is the variation in purchasing motivation among the different nationalities that visit the world's duty-free shops. At last month's India Duty [...]

Earlier this month news broke of Duty Free Stores New Zealand's legal action to stop Wellington International airport from appointing a second retailer. The operator claimed that the move would [...]

For those of us who thought that the threat to duty-flee tobacco sales started and ended with the World Health Organization's (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), 2005 has [...]

Travel-retail is often dismissed as a niche industry, often far removed from the domestic market. While suppliers tend to focus on the high street more than the airport business, travel [...]

Philip Morris International has reported a 2.9% increase in worldwide duty-free shipments in the second quarter of the year, with particularly strong sales in Bulgaria, Turkey and Romania. Cigarette volumes [...]

More than six months after Malaysia Airports was due to publish retail tenders for Kuala Lumpur International airport (KLIA), details of the selection process are finally emerging, and the nature [...]

The latest index of the French travel-retail trade may have changed format, with liquor, tobacco and beauty products separated rather than grouped together, but the challenges the market faces remain [...]

EUROPE. The European Travel Retail Council (ETRC) is urging the European Commission to reconsider a recent proposal restricting the number of liquor and wine bottle sizes. If implemented in their [...]

Although it is almost 15 years since Ukraine emerged as an independent state, the country's eagerly anticipated economic reform only began in earnest five years ago. And real political reform [...]

Despite the hype surrounding the budget travel boom in recent years, surprisingly little is known about the shopping behaviour of low-cost travellers. Elsewhere in this issue, for example, Vienna Airport [...]

INTERNATIONAL. The industry took a critical and constructive look at itself earlier this month when many of travel-retail's biggest companies gathered in London for the Global Travel Retail Summit 2005. [...]

In the wake of the Indian Ocean earthquake disaster, it is all too easy to adopt an apocalyptic view of the future. And while the tragedy and the suffering of [...]

CANADA. Vancouver International airport has reported strong gains in transborder sales to passengers flying to the US. The improvement has been triggered by retail expansion in the airport's transborder lounge [...]

CANADA. Blue Water Bridge Duty Free is aiming to offset reduced US traffic at the Sarnia crossing into the US by placing more emphasis on attracting Canadian travellers. In previous [...]

The Nuance Group's decision to concentrate on its core airport business appears to have paid early dividends with news of 11% revenue growth to SFr825m ($660m) in the first half [...]

From the British-dominated bars of Ayia Napa to the German hiking tours criss-crossing its greener parts, Cyprus has always been a favourite destination of northern European holidaymakers. Nevertheless it has [...]