It’s encouraging to see a closer relationship being forged between ACI Europe and the European Travel Retail Council (ETRC) at this year’s ACI Europe Trading Conference & Exhibition in Malta (26-28 April). Unveiling details of the programme, ACI Europe Director General Olivier Jankovec (pictured) said that in order to address a number of threats, industry
Blog
Airports
Jeju’s thriving Korean travel retail outpost
It’s been a long day. This morning I set off from my hotel at 7.30a.m to Gimpo Airport in Seoul to take an early flight to Jeju – the holiday island off the south of the Korean peninsula. Jeju is the home of a thriving duty free sector – both traditional duty free and also
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Miscellaneous
Consolidation fever in Seoul
The Moodie Report is in Seoul, heartland of South Korea’s lucrative – and fast-changing – travel retail industry. I’ve been coming here regularly since the early 1990s and it’s been fascinating to watch the evolution of the business – both on-airport and downtown – into one of the best in the world. Back then, Gimpo
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Airports
Leaving on a jet plane – from Heathrow Terminal 4
Airport: London Heathrow Terminal 4 Date: 16 January 2010 Destination: Incheon, South Korea Airline: Korean Air Flight time: 20.10 My arrival time at the airport: 18.05 The Moodie Report is on the road again – this time to the South Korean capital of Seoul, entering via the country’s main gateway Incheon International Airport. I flew
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Miscellaneous
Snowed in and snowed under at The Moodie Report
The weather outside is frightful But our work is so delightful The Moodie Report has to go So let it snow, let it snow, let it snow ‘The mail must get through’. That used to be the motto of the famed Pony Express in 19th Century America, when the mail was delivered by horseback. One
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Airlines
Korean Air remembers Lars Johansson
Do gestures come any more lovely than this? The front cover of the latest limited-edition version of Korean Air’s SkyShop magazine is dedicated to the memory of Lars Johansson, the man synonymous with the extraordinary success of Inniskillin Icewine in travel retail. Tragically, Lars passed away suddenly during October 2009’s TFWA World Exhibition in Cannes.
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Miscellaneous
Adding character and colour to The Moodie Blog
Ever since The Moodie Blog was launched in September 2006, it has been accompanied by a chirpy bunch of characters who, appropriately, share The Moodie Report Publisher’s initials. Legend has it that all the M&M’s characters gathered together back then and decided it was exactly the colourful sort of column they should be associated with.
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Airports
Changi Terminal 3 – a traveller’s haven
Every time The Moodie Blog visits an airport (incognito) during 2010 we’ll try to record our impressions from a consumer’s (rather than journalist’s) perspective. Our first stop for the New Year – and the new decade – was Singapore Changi Airport Terminal 3. Is there a better, more consumer-friendly terminal in the world than this
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Events
Supporting travel retail’s marathon man
On 19 April some 25,000 runners will gather at the start line of the Boston Marathon – known as the ‘Holy Grail’ of long-distance running. One of those participants will be from the travel retail community – The Estée Lauder Companies Travel Retailing Worldwide President Olivier Bottrie. Olivier is no stranger to the loneliness –
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Airports
Dubai Duty Free defies the downturn
‘Dubai Duty Free hits record sales high in 2009’ – it’s a headline that many readers would have considered inconceivable earlier this year as the world’s leading travel retail operation experienced an unprecedented series of year-on-year monthly sales declines. Hit by a triple whammy of global recession, an ailing and debt-burdened local economy and the
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Airports
Nonsense and Sensibility
And so to my final Blog of the year – and the decade. 2009 closes out with duty free once again finding itself among headlines of the unwelcome kind. In the wake of the failed terrorist attack on a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day, the union representing German police officers
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Airlines
Kneejerk reactions and a Keystone Cops approach to terrorism
No-one doubts the seriousness of the attempted terrorist attack on Northwest Airlines flight 253, bound from Amsterdam Airport Schiphol to Detroit Metropolitan Airport, on Christmas Day. No-one doubts the need for enhanced, hopefully temporarily, security measures at airports – especially those in, or serving, the US. But if recent history should have taught us one
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Airports
Crazy queue at SQ
Some 50 minutes after entering the relatively short check-in queue for Singapore Airlines flight SQ 317 from London Heathrow Airport Terminal 3 to Singapore Changi Airport, I neared the front of the line. Finally, exasperated like all my fellow passengers, I spotted an airline staff member at the front of the line. “Could you tell