I’ve arrived home in London after a crazy but wonderful four weeks on the road. Hong Kong, Hainan Island, Seoul, Incheon, London (48 hours), Reykjavik, London (overnight), Orlando. I think my neighbours believed I was a burglar.
Miscellaneous
How Kap Lee intends to create ‘lifetime value’ at Lotte Duty Free
Many duty free executives from around the world come here just to view what amounts to a vast, throbbing human laboratory. Lotte Duty Free’s advantage is that it monitors that laboratory each and every day.
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Miscellaneous
There will be rain, there will be shine in Korean duty free
Brands’ long-held selective distribution principles have been scattered in the Korean winds – there’s certainly nothing selective about what amounts to a mass redistribution market, a little China of duty free.
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Events
Korean duty free may be yummy but don’t expect any golden eggs
Just as the Chinese government is seeking to crack down on, perhaps eliminate, daigou trading, there is the likelihood of more duty free licences here. Really? If that happens, Korea’s duty free chickens will have come home to roost. But they won’t be laying any golden eggs.
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Miscellaneous
The neighs have it, the neighs have it
Like the distinctly shady looking horse behind me in the BA lounge, I suppose it will be a case of “the neighs have it, the neighs have it.”
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Airports
From Cannabis oil to customised watches to four-letter words: Welcome to a brave Nous world
How was it that I felt confident enough to take my cannabis oil home? Simple. It’s been stripped of the principal psychoactive constituent (the THC) and is every bit as legal as carrying a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black or 200 Marlboro Lites.
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Events
Out alone in the Atplastic Ocean
As a sector, travel retail is a serial offender. One that is contributing every day to the Atlantic turning into the Atplastic.
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Miscellaneous
Filipino flair and Chinese spice: Viewing travel retail through a different prism
People often ask me where I see the next big opportunity in travel retail. Which market? Which consumers? Which categories? Three days in the Philippines has helped shape my answers. Except I wouldn’t say ‘next’ opportunity. It’s here. It’s now. It’s happening.
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People
And when the wind blows…
“When the wind blows,” was his evocative, very Chinese way of saying that big opportunity lies ahead and that CNSC must be ready.
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Events
There may be truffle ahead
Many commentators believe there may be truffle ahead in the Year of the Pig but to me that’s hogwash, the sort of prediction I might have made in my younger, rasher days.
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Events
Time to hit the road again
I’ve been 32 years in travel retail now, the past 17 at The Moodie Davitt Report, and I can honestly say that I’m bringing as much energy into this one as I did all those years ago in 2002 when we set off on our journey.
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Miscellaneous
Onwards into a bright new year
We are, above all, an information service. But we are one with a voice. Those factors collectively bestow responsibility on us. Our information must be timely, reliable, accurate. Our voice must be responsible, ethical and selective.
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Events
All black in Dublin but all good in Dubai’s Turmeric Open
I know the Irish founded the duty free industry but I didn’t realise they a) still populated it in such quantity and b) all had my phone number.