CHINA. In big breaking news, China Duty Free Group (CDFG) President Charles Chen has also been named President and a Board Director of the travel retailer’s parent company China International Travel Service (CITS), The Moodie Davitt Report can exclusively reveal.
The appointment – and Chen’s dual status across both organisations – represents noteworthy high-level recognition for the CDFG President who has transformed its fortunes since he assumed the leadership role in 2016.
When Chen, a youthful company veteran who joined CDFG in 1987, took over the President’s role in 2016, group turnover was just RMB10 billion (less than US$1.5 billion). With its Hainan offshore duty free business booming, and rapid expansion elsewhere, the retailer is on track to hit revenues of RMB45 billion (US$6.5 billion) in 2019, according to Moodie Davitt Business Intelligence Service numbers. That is up from RMB34.5 billion in 2018, itself more than double the previous year (including figures from Sunrise Duty Free).
This year has seen a flurry of openings, including the recent inauguration of a 513sq m downtown duty free store in Beijing at the Blue Harbor shopping centre; the unveiling of a refurbished 500sq m downtown shop in Dalian; and other new downtown stores in Xiamen, Qingdao, Shanghai (opened today) and Hong Kong (opened Tuesday). Additionally, CDFG is preparing to unveil an expansive retail offer at the new Beijing Daxing International Airport and is mounting an ambitious refurbishment of its Beijing Capital International Airport Terminal 3 stores.
Comment: What a tremendous recognition of Charles Chen’s contribution to CDFG this is, writes Martin Moodie. It also underlines the critical importance of CDFG to CITS – and to China. Duty free shopping – within China and worldwide – is seen as a huge growth opportunity by the Chinese government, and an important means of repatriating some of the vast amounts spend abroad by Chinese citizens.
Chen, who I have known since 1987 – the year we both entered the travel retail business – is a particularly driven and passionate individual, a man with a tremendous ‘can do’ spirit who believes passionately in CDFG and the future of the sector. He was the driving force behind the group’s building of its acclaimed Haitang Bay retail complex, which opened in August 2014 and has since turned into one of travel retail’s great 21st century success stories.
What can we read into his appointment to such a prestigious dual role? Besides the obvious testament to Chen’s and CDFG’s success, China sees the fortunes of its tourism and duty free sectors a being inextricably linked. CDFG will increasingly leverage the power – and the consumer knowhow – of CITS to grow its business worldwide. This appointment seems like a harbinger of even bigger things to come.
