SAUDI ARABIA. Riyadh Airports Company (RAC) has posted a record-breaking commercial performance at King Khalid International Airport (KKIA) with July duty free revenues surging +12% above the previous monthly high, set in March this year.
Notably, the performance was also +68% ahead of duty free revenues reported for the pre-pandemic month of July 2019. Aelia Duty Free (Lagardère Travel Retail) runs the duty free stores at the airport.
Duty free sales recorded on the successive days of 6, 7 and 8 July were all higher than any previous single days in the history of the airport, which opened in 1983.
The impressive new duty free numbers have been shared with The Moodie Davitt Report in the lead-up to the release this month of our special publication, The Saudi Travel & Tourism Ecosystem Report.
The title takes a deep dive into one of the world’s most exciting, environmentally conscious, investment-heavy and fast-growing travel, tourism and aviation markets.
Included in the publication is a cover story interview with RAC Commercial Group Acting VP Abdulaziz Al-Asaker, who discusses the factors behind KKIA’s rapid rise as a duty free hotspot and the gateway’s pivotal role in the wider tourism ecosytem.
“Since King Khalid International Airport is the first point about the Kingdom that the tourist who has different notions about Saudi Arabia – or perhaps no notions at all – discovers, so we have to deliver this notion in a good way,” he says.
“We must have our facilities and our services ready for the tourist. We have to make everything convenient for the traveller and offer the best and smoothest experience to leave a lasting first impression. And for the final impression, when they leave the country they have to be farewelled in a very good way and with the best possible experience so they might come again.”
