Swiss duty free retailer Dufry said on Tuesday it was upbeat on the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic thanks to an easing of restrictions and encouraging demand for travel retail, adding it planned to reopen up to 70 percent of shops until end-August.
The Switzerland-based company with operations in over 60 countries said it reached a turnover of 1.19 billion Swiss francs (1.29 billion U.S. dollars) in the first half of 2021, driven by the re-initiation of travel in the United States, Central America, parts of Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
“We see a good recovery in the regions and countries with high vaccination levels and no or reduced travel restrictions,” Chief Executive Officer Julian Diaz told Xinhua.
“These two factors, vaccination and ease of travel protocols, remain the key drivers for the recovery of cross-border, and in particular, intercontinental travel. In July, we also saw a pickup of customers within our Europe, Middle East and Africa region.”
The retailer operates more than 2,300 shops in airports, cruise lines, seaports, railway stations and tourist areas around the world.
As of June, around 1,600 of its stores were open, representing over 75 percent of sales capacity, with expectation to open up to 70 percent of shops and close to 85 percent of sales capacity until end-August, it said in a press release.
“It is still very difficult to provide a performance outlook in the context of the still low visibility of the pandemic’s evolution and its impact on travel. We have therefore not provided any formal outlook since the first quarter of 2020,” Diaz said.
CHINA BUSINESS
Dufry currently operates more than 20 stores in China, on top of the participation at the Global Duty Free Plaza of the Mova Mall in Hainan.
Asked about Dufry’s business outlook and expansion plans in China, Diaz said: “China is and remains an important market for travel retail due to the propensity of Chinese customers to shop and travel.”
“Our main expansion step in the third quarter of 2021 will be the opening of the second phase of the shop at the Global Duty Free Plaza in Haikou’s Mova Mall, where we will add another 30,000 square meters of sales space to the existing 3,000 square meters already in operation.”
“This will considerably increase our assortment and in particular the selection of global brands across all categories.”
Last year, Dufry launched a joint venture with Chinese tech giant Alibaba Group to partner in the Chinese travel retail market in a bid to accelerate its consumer retail business and digital transformation.
“The partnership with Alibaba focuses on two main areas. One is the joint assessment and development of online and physical shop opportunities within China to further expand our footprint, our sales potential and the online customer engagement levels,” Diaz said.
“The second element is the acceleration of the digitization of our internal processes, by benefitting from the vast experience of Alibaba with respect to online trading and digitization of business processes.”
Diaz said that there is still scope for growth in their existing partnership. “For both aspects, we have combined teams working together to identify opportunities,” he said. Enditem
