AMERICAS. Bacardi Global Travel Retail will continue to build on the large-scale brand campaigns held across the Americas last year, in 2018.
These include a Grey Goose holiday campaign at Toronto Pearson International Airport in December and the Dewar’s Fine Whisky Emporium (which launched first at Frankfurt Airport in January 2017). The latter will be developed for Miami International Airport for the summer.
“These campaigns delivered tremendous engagement with existing brand lovers and recruited new interest,” said Bacardi Global Travel Retail Regional Director Americas Geoff Biggs.
“They drove footfall and double-digit sales uplift with travellers who were intending to shop the spirits category and, significantly, converting those whose curiosity with the campaign instigated them to make a purchase.”
The drinks company aims to deliver more shopper engagement campaigns this year.
“The importance of driving interest and conversion in areas of high footfall, both inside and outside airport stores, will be increasingly important in 2018 as the USA continues to see a drop in incoming passenger numbers.
“This is largely thought to be connected to the strong US dollar versus other key currencies like UK Sterling and the Euro,” he said.
The company has experienced good organic growth in its cruise business as an uplift in the US economy has boosted consumer confidence.
Biggs added: “Advance bookings are strong and there’s increased capacity, so we will be continuing our support and investment in the channel.”
In Latin America, Bacardi Global Travel Retail has experienced slow recovery from the 2017 hurricane season. But, there are some general signs of improvement compared to last year, according to Biggs.
“Colombia is showing especially good growth, boosted by the opening of additional terminal space at Bogotá El Dorado International Airport shared by DFASS and Dufry and in the existing Motta space.
“We are also seeing improvements in demand from Brazil around our whisky, vodka and gin portfolio.”
