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Airport revenues come from both aeronautical and non-aeronautical sources. Globally, non-aeronautical revenues are becoming increasingly important; they account for half of all revenues at airports of which airport retailing contributes a significant part. Moreover, airport retailing has experienced a significant change over the last decade with an increasing number of product varieties and an augmented shopping experience. However, research on the influence of individual journey modes (plane, boat, bus or train) – on travel retail in general and airport retailing specifically – is limited as most studies have predominantly concentrated on the destination effect. As an example, of 478 articles published by two of the leading travel and tourism industry journals (Journal of Travel Research and Tourism Management) between 2015 and 2017, just 6 papers related to the airline and airport industry. Within the literature in general most prior research on travellers’ shopping behaviour at airports has been mainly descriptive, and centred on identifying various shopping types and their underlying motivations. Although insightful in identifying the uniqueness of the airport shopping environment, this research was predicated on a traditional duty-free shopping environment with fairly limited product varieties.

The business arena is abundant with myriad organizations offering a wide variety of products and services. But only those organizations that are able to function successfully in the marketplace are able to survive and subsequently evolve. For an organization's performance to be determined as successful, the metrics of the organization prove to be vital indicators. Some commonly used metrics to measure organizational success are total sales and revenue, total assets held, employees training expense, attrition rate, investment in IT, market share, awards and recognition received, press/media mentions, CSR campaigns etc (Finney and Corbett, 2007; Liebowitz and Suen, 2000; Self, 2004). Many organizations bifurcate these metrics into internal and external metrics to make performance measurement easier. If an organization has excelled on the majority the above mentioned metrics, it can be deemed successful. Analyzing the reasons behind the success of an organization would require delving into the dimensions that play an important role in the flawless functioning of the firm. These include strategic planning, leadership styles of the managers, organizational culture and strategic alliances. This paper presents an analysis conducted on an organization which has been in business for the past 28 years in the duty free environment and has been the number one Duty Free in the world, based on revenues - Dubai Duty Free. The methodology implied involves primary data collection by way of in-depth interviews conducted with twelve of the senior executives of Dubai Duty Free heading IT and Logistics, Marketing, Human Resources, Operations, Purchasing, Finance etc. Upon completion of the primary data collection stage, the secondary data obtained from the organization has been put to a content analysis. The findings indicate that Dubai Duty Free, over the 28 years of its existence, has orchestrated and implemented an indigenous strategic framework for itself. This has encompassed and u