COLOMBIA. A joint venture between Miami-based travel retailer DFASS and industry giant Dufry has been awarded, subject to contract, a long-term duty free concession at El Dorado Luis Carlos Galan Sarmiento International Airport in Bogotá, according to reliable sources in the vendor community.
The concession, one of Latin America’s most important airport duty free contracts, will be run by DFASS Colombia Ltda and Dufry America Inc. It covers nearly 2,200sq m of retail space in the newly developed Terminal 1 international zone of the Columbian gateway.
That area encompasses space occupied by previous tenant La Riviera Duty Free, whose parent company Grupo Wisa is currently under investigation by the US authorities for alleged money laundering.
The Moodie Davitt Report has sought comment from DFASS and Dufry and will bring you any reaction.
The new contract is set to commence in coming weeks. The Moodie Davitt Report estimates the business to be worth around US$75 million a year.
The contract is a major gain for both joint venture partners. For Dufry it consolidates the group’s dominant position in the region while for the family-held DFASS the concession is a key gain as it seeks to bolster its fast-growing airport shop business in tandem with its status as the world’s leading inflight retail concessionaire. The two companies already work together at Chicago O’Hare Airport in the US where Dufry acquired DFASS’s partner there, The Nuance Group, in September 2014.
El Dorado International Airport is one of the most important airport duty free locations in Latin America. It is the fifth-busiest international airport in the region (and the biggest for cargo) and the primary hub for Copa Airlines and Avianca. DFASS holds the inflight duty free concession onboard Avianca.
The airport handled 29,956,551 passengers in 2015. Around one-third were international passengers.
For the first half of 2016, international passenger traffic rose by +8.3% year-on-year.
[This video shows the quality of the new airport. Note that it was shot while La Riviera Duty Free was still trading there.]
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