Talking Trinity and new partnership models

The Trinity Initiative, a project designed to help plot the future commercial, consumer and contractual landscape of the airport retail world, culminated in a compelling session at the Virtual Travel Retail Expo Knowledge Hub.

The Trinity Initiative was launched in April by The Moodie Davitt Report with the cooperation of a range of senior industry stakeholders and in association with leading international management consultancy Bain & Company.

Mauro Anastasi, a Partner with Bain & Company Italy and Jack MacGowan, Director at Castlepole Consulting and former CEO of Irish state-owned Aer Rianta International, outlined their views on the industry’s big challenges, led by penetration, knowledge of the consumer and the contractual model. The future, they said, must include more flexibility and adaptability; data-driven commercial strategies led by dynamic pricing, AI promotion planning and leveraging CRM to unlock customer value; adopting an omnichannel travel retail-tailored strategy; and a rethinking of contract structures.

The full, compelling session can be viewed in the video below (a final White Paper with recommendations will follow).

How the industry collaborates was also the central topic of The APTRA Exchange, a panel of members from the Asia Pacific Travel Retail Association, chaired by Ground Control Founder Kevin Zajax.

For a lively debate on how industry stakeholders can effectively collaborate to navigate the COVID-19 crisis, click on the video link.

In one of the true heavyweight panels in the Knowledge Hub, Dubai Airports CEO Paul Griffiths, JCDecaux Co-Chief Executive Officer Jean-Charles Decaux, L’Oréal General Manager Travel Retail Worldwide Vincent Boinay and Lagardère Travel Retail Chairman & CEO Dag Rasmussen talked collaboration and consumers.

The idea of extending the Trinity to a ‘quaternity’, involving airlines, is not a new one, but Griffiths laid down a new path that could help substantially increase the size of the pie for all four components of it.

He said: “I would be very, very happy to talk to our airline partners and say that travel retail, the airport and the airlines need to work together [to sell products]. There needs to be a mechanism for rewarding that shared space. And I think if airlines would participate in boosting travel retail revenues at key airports like DXB, we would respond by rebating the costs of doing business at the airport through a commission structure based on sales.”

That suggestion (outlined in his commentary in the video below) and the idea of more meaningful collaboration across the travel eco-system found broad agreement among his fellow panellists.

Boinay said: “If we want to really have a rebirth in this industry, then we need to change the equation and to play a different game together and play it well. We need solutions that are going to be sustainable for the brands, sustainable for the airport and sustainable for all the stakeholders, including the airlines and the retailers.”

Rasmussen said: “If we want to follow the consumer from home and back again via their trip, we need to add up the different pieces of the puzzle and the airlines are a key part of that. None of us have them individually. So it’s just a must, if we want to be consumer-centric, we need to work together.”

Decaux said: “We are ready to start the discussion as soon as you need and as soon as you want, because I think this can take our industry to the next level for the next 10-15 years. I don’t think this is something we can put on one side at the moment because it’s the right time to try to create this. This new sharing platform must include the airlines.”

The airline view of the wider opportunity also found voice in a special session on omnichannel.

“We feel that the future of travel retail remains bright,” said KrisShop CEO Chris Pok. “Why? Because the core fundamental of travel retail has not changed. It remains highly lucrative because the travel market will always grow post-COVID. More importantly it is part of the core business of the airlines.”

KrisShop tech partner and AOE Founder & CEO Kian Gould presented a powerful address on a highly relevant theme, ‘What got us here won’t get us there,’ which explored how a collaborative mindset can help reinvent ancillary revenue generation in the post-COVID era.

Representing another AOE partner, Auckland Airport Head of Omnichannel Jayne Wear said that the airport company has already reimagined the airport retail experience. “Our retail proposition has come a long way. 20 years ago, we were leveraging physical stores, today it is very different.”

For the full discussion, click on the video link below.

For more sessions from the Knowledge Hub, click here.