{"id":16832,"date":"2022-03-09T16:29:38","date_gmt":"2022-03-09T16:29:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.meretailnews.com\/?p=16832"},"modified":"2022-06-12T19:44:19","modified_gmt":"2022-06-12T19:44:19","slug":"middle-east-contributed-greatly-to-dufrys-increased-post-pandemic-sales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.meretailnews.com\/2022\/03\/09\/middle-east-contributed-greatly-to-dufrys-increased-post-pandemic-sales\/","title":{"rendered":"Middle East contributed greatly to Dufry\u2019s increased post-pandemic sales\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><!-- VideographyWP Plugin Message: Automatic video embedding prevented by plugin options. --><br \/>\n<span data-contrast=\"auto\">Dufry\u2019s increased sales last year were largely thanks to the Middle East market, the Swiss-based duty-free travel retailer said in its October report.\u00a0<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">The report pooled together analyses of Europe, the Middle East and Africa, placing these regions\u2019 turnover as AED6.73 billion last year, a 50.56 per cent increase from AED4.47 billion in 2020.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">In the report, Juli\u00e1n Di\u00e1z, CEO of the Dufry group, said that thanks to the travel peaks in these regions, Dufry began seeing pre-pandemic levels of trading in the region, with stores operating at 89.1 per cent of the brand\u2019s sales capacity.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">\u201cThe most significant uptake was reported across Europe, Middle East and Africa as vaccination campaigns have been progressing and authorities have started to focus on an alignment of travel protocols and the practicality of measures,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">The travel increase was attributed to these regions having a higher demand for leisure and more flexible travel programmes than others.\u00a0<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">At the Middle East and Africa Duty Free Association Conference held in November, Isabel Zarza, COO of Dufry\u2019s Central and North Europe, Russia and Africa division, commented on Middle Eastern travellers\u2019 airport activity, Travel Retail Business reported.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">\u201cThe spend per passenger is higher. It is true when passengers come back and when we have the same levels as 2019, spend per passenger will go back to normal but the passengers going through the airports are keen to buy,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Having seen such signs of recovery in 2021, Dufry hopes that with travel rebounding from its slump during the pandemic, activity this year will climb further.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">\u201cEmergence of the Omicron variant and related restricted measures re-imposed by selected governments caused some slowdown in January and February, but all regions have started to trend upwards already in line with the easing of restriction in many countries,\u201d the group said.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">At full sales capacity, the duty-free retailer operates 2,300 stores worldwide at airports, cruise liners, seaports, railway stations and traditional tourist locations.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Swiss-based duty-free retailer names Middle East as significant contributor to post-pandemic sales rebound. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":17295,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[4000,4001,3988],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meretailnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16832"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meretailnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meretailnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meretailnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meretailnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16832"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.meretailnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16832\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17165,"href":"https:\/\/www.meretailnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16832\/revisions\/17165"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meretailnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meretailnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meretailnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meretailnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}