Avolta has substantially expanded its expertise to operate all types of commercial spaces including both travel retail and F&B formats – and now even further to include operating as master concessionaire partner. Best-in-class concepts are developed based on detailed understanding of customer expectations as well as shopping and eating behaviors, creating value and maximizing revenue generation. The portfolio includes both dedicated and highly specialized concepts as well as hybrid formats allowing to completely revolutionize customer experience. The trust our concession partners place in Avolta allows our company to become the leading travel experience player, currently operating over 5,100 outlets in 73 countries located in airports, motorways, seaports, railway stations, downtown areas, border crossings, cruise liners & ferries, hotels and other locations with captive audiences. 

Benefitting from the widest industry experience 

Traditionally featuring a comprehensive portfolio of attractive concepts tailored to the individual needs of dutyfree, duty-paid and F&B environments, serving domestic and international passengers, Avolta constantly renews and updates its formats to meet expectations of existing, and newly emerging customer profiles. 

Intelligence on changing profiles and other customer insights is regularly collected through dedicated surveys, instore technologies and by analyzing online engagement of our customers and social media channels. This forms the basis of successful marketing initiatives tailored to the requirements of every single airport or any other type of location. Our worldwide presence and the extensive intelligence of customer profiles are core competitive advantages and key drivers to increase sales and profitability, combined with our ongoing evolution of shop design and customer services. 

Additionally, all these physical travel retail and F&B concepts are supported by a comprehensive array of online services and platforms, which considerably increase the number of touch-points along the traveler’s journey. Complemented with the extensive expertise in all operational and regulatory aspects as well as the sustainability management systems provided by Avolta, concession partners receive a complete package to best operate their spaces in a profitable and sustainable way.

Smart stores, highly digitalized and with a great sense of place 

In line with its strategy, Avolta continues to drive its shop and restaurant digitalization. This creates the ability to offer customers new services, increasing the level of direct interaction independently from nationalities and languages, while at the same time continuing to implement location-specific formats with highly attractive sense-ofplace designs. Most recent examples include the newly refurbished duty-free shop at Arlanda Airport in Stockholm (Sweden) as well as “Haute Perfumery”, opened at Zurich Airport (Switzerland), featuring phygital experiences helping the customer to identify the right fragrance. 

Highly digitalized shops and F&B outlets – which include pre-order applications, loyalty program integration, phygital experiences as well as contactless shopping and palm recognition technologies – continue to evolve and are typically implemented during refurbishments or when building new outlets. 

Avolta’s concepts provide for a high degree of customization, including sense-of-place designs, which remains an important aspect for our concession partners. Avolta knows how to perfectly match local requirements and specific customer profiles with efficient commercial formats, to best serve travelers’ needs and to generate value for concession partners and Avolta alike. 

Real Partnership for mutual value creation 

Over the many years we have been in the business, we have advocated the importance of close collaboration between concession partners and operators of retail and F&B formats as a base for optimizing customer satisfaction and sales. By joining forces with our concession partners, we can, for example, in airports, create attractive commercial spaces that maximize spend from the traveler’s arrival at the airport until boarding – and if legislation allows – also for arrivals duty-free. 

Important contract wins and extensions 

In 2023, Avolta successfully secured new concessions and contract extensions, thereby fostering the company’s resilience with the necessary «operating licenses» to serve meals as well as selling products and services. In this context the remaining lifetime of its portfolio increased to currently over seven years from around six years in 2022. 

Highlights – amongst others – of the 2023 contract wins include the joint venture with Hubei Airport Group to run, as master concessionaire, the Wuhan Tianhe Airport’s Terminal 2 retail and F&B operations. Wuhan’s Terminal 2 serves 27 million passengers (base 2019) through 77 outlets. The APAC business region also saw an expansion of its operations in the People’s Republic of China by entering into a new five-year contract at Chongqing Jiangbei International Airport for four stores. 

In North America, Avolta was awarded a new long-term duty-free contract, along with an extension for its dutypaid business, for Boston Logan International Airport, was awarded long-term contracts for both retail and F&B areas at Oakland International Airport and signed a new fifteenyear duty-paid contract at Fresno Yosemite International Airport (California). 

In Latin America, Avolta signed a ten-year contract at Vitória Airport (Brazil) as well as a twenty-year contract to operate a duty-free store at the international bridge «General San Martin«, the main crossing point between Argentina and Uruguay. In EMEA, Avolta won new retail and F&B concessions at several airports including Helsinki Airport (Finland) and Hamad International Airport (Doha; F&B joint venture with Qatar Airways). 

Extensions played a key role in 2023 with, above all, the renewal of the vast majority of Avolta’s Spanish airport operation contracts for twelve years. This covers 21 airports, 120 retail outlets covering around 60,000 m2 and serves approximately 132 million travelers annually (base 2019). The total commercial space awarded represents a 30 % increase on the previous setup as well as a considerable sales category expansion in both retail and F&B. Worth mentioning are also the renewal of a seven-year concession contract at Belgrade airport to operate a total of eight duty-free shops, a seven-year extension in Kuala Lumpur International Airport (Malaysia) for F&B and a fifteen-year extension at Harry Reid International Airport (Las Vegas, USA). 

First-class concession portfolio further expanded with 84 new outlets 

In 2023, Avolta further increased its portfolio by opening and expanding 84 new retail shops and adding over 35,244 m² of retail space across all regions. At December 31, 2023, retail commercial space totaled 477,464 m², representing a solid footprint for our travel retail operations – and all the more impressive if counting also the commercial F&B areas. 

Within our total concession portfolio, 25 % have a remaining life-time of ten years or more, 26 % have between six and nine years, another 28 % have three to five years and the final 21 % of our contracts have a remaining duration of one to two years. That 51 % of contracts have a life-time of over six years, is testimony to the strong resilience of the Avolta business. On average, Avolta renews existing contracts, representing between 10 % and 15 % of our sales, each year, over and above new contract additions. 

The company’s concession portfolio is highly diversified and well balanced across emerging and mature markets in all six continents. The largest concession accounts for less than 4 % of sales, while the 10 biggest concessions represent less than 18 %, thus reducing cluster risk and exposure to impacts in any single market or operation. 

Financial discipline to focus on investment returns 

Avolta has tight financial discipline when evaluating new projects and opportunities. This has repeatedly proven its value during challenging business environments as it allows Avolta to optimize costs and flexible investments. Projects are analyzed individually on a commercial and financial basis. The many aspects of a project being assessed include development potential and analyzing initial investment requirements, as well as the expected development of traveler numbers and profile perspectives. Through a strict evaluation of these criteria and our disciplined approach on returns, we ensure that our concession portfolio remains of the highest quality and that each concession offers attractive returns for the company. This methodology is applied to all project types, irrespective of whether we participate in a tender process, engage in direct negotiations with concession owners or perform acquisitions. 

As part of «Destination 2027», we have put active portfolio management at the core of our long-term strategy following the principle of full profitability evaluation for each concession contract and, at the appropriate times, renegotiation or exit from any concession that does not match our concession specific objectives. We continuously update and review our portfolio, including post-opening performances.

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