INTERNATIONAL. The majority of travel retail operators and suppliers (56.3%) believe collaboration between the two parties will improve in 2017, according to research.
44.6% expect relations to ‘somewhat’ improve, while 11.6% forecast a ‘significant’ improvement, according to a new Advantage International Group report.
It shows that 60% of the travel retail operators surveyed were looking forward to an improvement in their collaboration with their suppliers (see chart immediately below). 15% expected collaboration to ‘significantly’ improve, while 45% said relations would ‘somewhat’ improve. 29% thought collaboration would stay the same and 7% believed it would ‘somewhat worsen’.
Some 55% of suppliers forecasted a positive outlook for their collaboration with retailers – of which 46% predicted things would ‘somewhat’ improve and 9% ‘significantly’ (see below chart). 28% anticipated that collaboration would stay the same and 10% said it would ‘somewhat worsen’.
The results are based on the responses of 451 operators and 468 suppliers.
Looking at both parties together, 28% of vendors and operators expect relations to remain the same, while 8% expect collaboration to ‘somewhat worsen’. A small fraction (0.5%) anticipate a ‘significant’ decline in relations.
“This is a positive announcement from the industry, and not surprising after the challenges in the past years,” said Advantage International Group Senior Manager, Global Business Development Nestor Sanajko (pictured right).
“There have been other indicators of the industry’s positive outlook, such as Airport Council International’s increasing global passenger traffic trends, as well as Tax Free World Association (TFWA) President Erik Juul-Mortensen’s optimism in his annual state of the industry address at the TFWA World Exhibition & Conference in Cannes.”
