INTERNATIONAL. Welcome to the latest issue of The Moodie Davitt e-Zine. King Power International last week revealed one of Asia’s most eye-catching, elegant and experiential off-airport duty free stores. Click here to open this edition.
Speaking about the company’s redesigned and refurbished flagship King Power Rangnam store, CEO Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha told The Moodie Davitt Report Publisher Dermot Davitt: “We wanted to change some perceptions of what a duty free shop is about. It was time to do something new. The world is changing, the market is changing and the behaviour of customers, tourists, even staff, is changing.
“It’s not just shopping; you can come here to eat or be entertained and we have a programme of events lined up each month that people will find attractive.”
We assess the highlights and key talking points from one of travel retail’s most ambitious projects.
Elsewhere in this issue, we analyse new figures from the Korean Duty Free Association which show, in rare detail, the performance of the South Korean duty free market in 2017. But the seemingly robust results don’t tell the whole story. While the booming daigou business and strong Korean spend aided top-line sales even amid a tourism crisis, retailers faced an intense squeeze on profitability.
In The Muse, we assess whether the future of the cigarette category in duty free is also smoke-free in the wake of Philip Morris International’s dramatic New Year’s resolution to stop selling cigarettes in the UK “as soon as possible”.
Please enjoy this edition of The Moodie Davitt e-Zine with our compliments.
