Top class in Tumon Bay

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Martin Moodie

Martin Moodie is the Founder & Chairman of The Moodie Report.

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DFS may have suffered a stinging reverse in its efforts to retain the duty free and specialist retail concession at A.B. Won International Airport, Guam (though it is still challenging the process that led to Lotte Duty Free winning it), but the retailer continues to run a splendid and thriving downtown Galleria in nearby Tumon Bay.

I had the pleasure of meeting Lynette Johnson, DFS’s Managing Director MidPacific Division Guam & Saipan, then walking the store in the expert hands of DFS Guam Galleria Market Development Director Joann Camacho.

The store is about half way through a major renovation but the average consumer wouldn’t know it. It’s typically top-drawer DFS retail, with some nice local twists (a very strong destination merchandise area, for example, adjacent to some fine work by local artists). There’s also a kid’s area, never really a DFS focus elsewhere, underlining the influence of the family travel market in Guam.

I also chatted with many of the team and caught up with Sales Associate Sherwin Rama (pictured below with me and Product Sales Manager Emma Patarawan), who was featured a few months ago in our popular e-Zine series, ‘The Front Line’, which, as the name suggests, focuses on shop floor staff who have been singled out by their employers as being exceptional with customers. I noted that Sherwin did not, however, talk about ‘customers’ – each time he referred to “our guests”.

Rather than a long description of the store, I’ll let the pictures tell the story. Like DFS, they do it very well indeed.