Weighing up the role of wellbeing (continued)

How do you think the channel can and should engage with travelling consumers to ensure a sustained recovery?

Christine Keeling (Long Haul Spa): Encouragement and motivation to travel, spend and enjoy, while taking appropriate safety precautions, will be crucial. More creative uses of digital retail should be explored and the ability to buy online for delivery at gate, seat or at home should be enhanced. This includes digital shopping onboard with pickup on arrival or delivery to destination. There won’t be a sustained recovery without a unified travel market. Governments need to work together to ensure that an open border is an open border. If travellers are concerned that a border is going to suddenly close and keep them away from home or force them to return home mid-trip, people are just not going to risk travelling.

Sandrine Tesnière (Johnson & Johnson): According to travel retail research company M1ndset, 45% of international travellers will refrain from testing/trying any form of products in duty free shops airports post COVID-19. Therefore, the industry needs to embrace new ways for consumers to interact with brands – not just beauty but across all categories. I expect that we will see virtual make-up and skincare trials, reliance on dermatologists’ recommendations, virtual testing and touchless experiences.

Eric Armengou and Hugo Rovira (Haan): Everything that has to do with travel retail products must fit into the new normal, because we need to rebuild traveller confidence. The role of travel retail should be to educate and the consumer on health and safety measures and to encourage them to act responsibly. It is important to make people regain confidence when traveling, and to do so, they must be able to find personal care products at the airport.

Clara Bae (TonyMoly): Customer engagement is becoming extremely important in such a competitive and contactless environment. Travel retail needs to engage with customers prior to their journey, whether that be through online, digital or social media. By doing so retailers and brands can give customers more reasons to shop, particularly during these uncertain times. Customers will return to stores once they can be assured that the retail environment is safe.

Sid Katari (Oribe): It is important to over-communicate with travelling consumers to let them know that their safety is the priority for the industry. Consistent contact with travellers via email or on social media is crucial for them to understand the safety measures that are in place, which will in turn encourage them to return once it is safe to do so. As regions around the world continue to open up, I have confidence that the travel retail channel will make a full recovery.

Neil Ebbutt (Rituals): Since our ability to physically engage with consumers is compromised, I think the digital and online experience becomes crucial. We have to leverage this to bring our brand story to life and to maintain that emotional connection we have worked so hard to build with our customers over the years.

As COVID-19 struck, we pivoted extremely quickly in our domestic business to fulfil orders through online channels and that resulted in a significant increase in the contribution of online to our overall business. There are a lot of learnings we will apply in our travel retail stores as the skies begin to open up.

Nicolas Rimeau (Filorga): With fewer people travelling, the penetration and conversion rates appear will become even more crucial. In a digitalised world where consumers have all the information on their smartphone, people are looking for a seamless and differentiating experience (the standardisation era is definitively over). We have to offer them much more reasons to shop in travel retail than just prices and promotions. Creating a differentiated experience is a responsibility shared by airports, retailers and brands all together as the three interdependent parts of the same ecosystem.