NEW ZEALAND. Lagardère Travel Retail celebrated yesterday’s opening of the trans-Tasman air bubble as international travellers began to shop again on departure to Australia.
“Despite an incredibly challenging 2020 and the effective shutdown of duty free and international airport retail trade for over 12 months, our teams were smiling and ready to welcome passengers back to our stores in Christchurch, Queenstown, Wellington and Auckland for the start of the bubble arrangement between Australia and New Zealand,” the company said.
Lagardère Travel Retail Pacific CEO Przemek Lesniak expressed his excitement to see the stores re-open, commenting, “It was devastating for the whole team to have to close the doors of our international stores back in April 2020, so reopening our doors yesterday was quite emotional for all of us.
“I am so proud of how our team has managed the challenges brought on by this pandemic, and thankful to have great partnerships with our airports which have allowed us to re-open in a range of capacities for the start of the bubble.”
Lagardère Travel Retail operates a network of over 40 stores across eight airports in New Zealand and covering a wide range of concepts including Aelia Duty Free, Relay, TikiTour, Whittaker’s, the All Blacks store concept, MAC and Tech2Go.
