Latest posts by Martin Moodie (see all)
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- In memory of Roopa, a Mitti Café and travel retail heroine - November 23, 2025
It is, as they say, raining cats and dog here in Discovery Bay, Hong Kong, with only the occasional brilliant flash of lightning to illuminate the gloom.
The inclement weather is due to the aftermath of Tropical Cyclone Mitag, the powerful (T3 force) but in relative terms tame harbinger to Tropical Storm Ragasa (set to become Super Typhoon Ragasa).
Ragasa is expected to enter Hong Kong’s 800km radius by Tuesday (23 September) morning with sustained winds near its centre of 195km per hour, prompting sea surges similar to those triggered by the monstrous Mangkhut in 2018 – the strongest typhoon to affect the Special Administrative Region since Ellen in 1983.
Already the chances of my British Airways flight to London late Tuesday night departing on time look slim. And maybe given the likely terrifying power of Ragasa (named with some understatement after a Filipino word meaning rapid or fast motion) I’m not too unhappy about that.
All this weather reporting – one has to be versatile in the modern journalistic world – and particularly the feline and canine reference is a rather clumsy precursor to my delight at news that dogs and cats accessories company Hunter has recently opened a store at Frankfurt Airport.
The boutique offers an enticing array of the German brand’s collars, leashes, toys and accessories for pets.
Why my pleasure? Because in this very Blog in May, I asked: “Which retailer is going to be bold and visionary enough to open the first pets’ accessories store in travel retail, something I have been urging for years?”
I replied to my own question by adding: “The answer might be coming soon. Meet Dorian Wiegand (pictured below), Senior Key Account Manager and Team Lead International Sales at Hunter, a simply brilliant German dogs and cats accessories company.
“Each year Hunter crafts enough leather articles to stretch 300,000 metres – a fitting analogy to how the brand’s reach continues to grow, connecting more pet owners worldwide with the house’s signature quality and design.”
Hunter has duly delivered, with great panache, its first travel retail store.
However, given the global – and particularly Asian – surge in pet ownership during the pandemic, I am surprised that no travel retailer nor airport has made a foray into the sector earlier.
Accordingly to trade media title VetTimes (where sub-editors are probably known as Chief Vetters), 3.2 million UK households acquired a pet in the first year of the pandemic. And while the USA remains the world’s largest pet market, worth approximately US$150 billion according to the American Pet Products Association, China’s recent pet frenzy has seen it rapidly catch up, the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business (CKGSB) website notes.
Walking down the trendy Anfu Road in central Shanghai, you would not be surprised to see an Adidas Originals product launch at a new flagship store, but you might be surprised to learn that you cannot wear any of the clothing yourself, because the entire China-exclusive line is for pets – Maria Hsin, CKGSB Knowledge
China’s pet market is predicted to be worth CNY811 billion (US$112.5 billion) this year, according to an iiMedia Research pet industry report, having almost quadrupled since 2019 – three times the growth rate of its international peers.
And consider these statistics from the same report. Pet owners are getting younger. As of December 2024, around 41% of those in China were born between 1990 and 1999 while the share of owners born after 2000 increased from 10.1% in 2023 to 25.6% in 2024.
And with that ownership comes spending. A lot of it. “As more young Chinese choose pets over parenthood, pet-related spending has surged,” Beijing-based CKGSB Knowledge notes. “Urban Chinese pet owners spent over CNY300 billion (US$41 billion) on their cats and dogs in 2024, a +7.5% annual increase and… larger than the entirety of China’s health supplement market in 2023, according to Petdata.”
Younger pet owners. Pets over parenthood. Think about those six words in a travel retail context. The opportunities in terms of so-called ‘guilt’ purchasing are huge. Personalisation of, say, collars or leads? A sure-fire winner. Dog fragrances? You bet. Dolce & Gabbana is already there with its Fefé Dog Fragrance Mist (surely Puig will follow suit?).
Luxury brands, including Hermès, Louis Vuitton, Burberry, Celine, Gucci, MCM, Prada and Tiffany & Co. are all offering super-premium pet products, ranging from dog bowls to waterproof coats to cotton fleece hoodies.
And yet… and yet… in the whole travel retail world there is just a solitary pet accessories store. Frankfurt cannot be, must not be, a solitary case. It’s time, surely, for the reign of cats and dogs in travel retail. ✈
