Border business goes mainstream for Dufry

The world’s biggest travel retailer has marked a new era in the duty free border shop business in Brazil.

Dufry officially opened its first land border duty free shop in the country in Uruguaiana on the Argentinean frontier. The move follows final approval of regulations governing this channel of business by customs authorities, and Dufry said it plans to open further stores soon.

“The completion of the regulations has been long awaited and we are now focusing on exploring this completely new channel for Dufry in Brazil,” said Dufry Divisional CEO Central and South America Rene Riedi. “We are looking forward to offering customers the same world-class shopping experience they can find in our shops worldwide.”

Dufry noted that the border duty free business already exists in other countries in South America and is very popular among Brazilian customers, who cross the borders for that purpose. With the new regulation, there will be a total of 32 Brazilian twin-cities with the right to operate duty free border shops and Dufry hopes to expand this business in all of these cities.