Latest posts by Martin Moodie (see all)
- From Lisbon to Lon Y Coed and on to Hong Kong - January 4, 2026
- Mundo Fantástico da Sardinha Portuguesa – where “the sardine is queen” - December 18, 2025
- In memory of Roopa, a Mitti Café and travel retail heroine - November 23, 2025
There’s a full moon over Ystradgynlais and the air is colder and crisper than a stalactite. It’s a splendid sight as I take a final walk from the last of my multiple Interim Bureaus over the past few months.
I’ve spent since late September entirely on the road, stopping several times here in South Wales between stays (and airport visits – look out for my store reports) in Alicante, Bristol, Malaga, Lisbon, London and Paris. Not so much a Flying Kiwi as an itinerant digital nomad of the travel retail kind.
But my next flight (this Tuesday) is back to Hong Kong, a place I’ve called home since mid-2020 but where I’ve barely set foot since late May. Other than some work obligations in June, my absence has been due to my daughter Sinead Moodie’s (our COO) illness.
We are overwhelmed by the concern expressed for her by so many within the travel retail community and the support they have shown for our forthcoming #KickCancerThon, designed to raise funds and visibility for cancer causes worldwide.
And so on that simultaneously sombre yet inspirational note, another year in travel retail – my 39th – begins.
Three days into 2026 (and thus far more than 3,000 words on ‘the website that never sleeps’ published), it already shapes as another rollercoaster year for our industry, caught as it so often is in the tangled, torturous crossfire of geo-politics, economic fluctuations and industry-specific challenges.
How will South American travel, tourism and economies be affected by US President Donald Trump’s startling seizure of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, given the inevitable uncertainly that will pervade not just the country but the region? Will what The Japan Times recently dubbed a ‘deep freeze’ in relations between Japan and China continue to undermine the travel retail sector in both key markets.
On an industry level, will Dubai Duty Free be sold off, concessioned out or even some form of hybrid solution found? Or will the retailer’s stellar 2025 under Ramesh Cidambi’s leadership mean status quo prevails?
Can Korean duty-free reinvent itself out of its recent malaise? Who will win the rebid Incheon DF1 and DF2 tenders – and at what price?
How will the rewriting of China’s airport retail landscape – Sunrise Duty Free out, Avolta and Wangfujing Duty Free in (tell me one person who predicted that) – play out? What will the 18 December 2025 Hainan customs closure spell for offshore duty-free?
These are the sorts of questions we seek to address each and every day at The Moodie Davitt Report. In a period (hopefully not an era) of AI-driven ‘reporting’ and sometimes shameless plagiarism, we will maintain the high ground and stick to the principles that took us from a start-up in September 2002 to the clear market leader we are today.
Talk to sources, value what we cannot publish as much as that which we can. Always innovate, never imitate.
That is why we bust some 90%+ of non-press release stories in our industry and why we are obsessed with getting better each day.
I don’t know what my year will bring, either personally or professionally. But I embark on the 24th year of The Moodie Davitt Report with hope in my heart, clarity in my vision and determination to make a difference in anything I and we do. ✈