TRBusiness partnered with Advantage on their annual 360 degree benchmarking study asking a sample of respondents, from over 50 participating travel retailers questions regarding China and other emerging markets.

 

The first question posed was: “The Chinese market has become an important focus for the travel retail industry as a whole. Are there other emerging markets that you believe are as important to your business or that deserve special focus besides China?”

 

Feedback from the industry revealed that there is no doubt that China is currently the engine that is driving most retail markets worldwide. “We are only at the beginnings of seeing the explosion of the Chinese influence in terms of our business,” said one respondent.

 

“We do not see any other country overtaking the importance of China in the immediate future, although it all depends on what happens with the Chinese economy,” said another.

 

‘NOTHING WILL COMPARE WITH CHINA’

“China will remain the largest market. Nothing will compare with Mainland China, not even Brazil.”

 

Many if not most of the respondents shared similar sentiment with Advantage claiming that no other emerging market is as important as China. However, some respondents mentioned the BRIC countries as well as numerous other nationalities and regions, which included; Thailand, Korea, Vietnam, Angola, Ukraine, Middle East, Far East, South America, Scandinavia and Africa.

 

When asked: When do you anticipate that the importance of other emerging markets will increase or may even outpace the level of the importance of the Chinese market for your business in the future?

 

The retailers felt that China will not be outpaced by other emerging markets in terms of importance. Analysing this theme, over 70% of the respondents maintained a similar sentiment. The remaining respondents were evenly distributed between different timelines and estimated 3 to 5 years, 5 to 10 and 15 to 20 years.

 

NEW REPORT

The Fifth annual Advantage Report – Travel Retail programme has been launched for travel retailers. Over 60 Retailers have confirmed participation in this year’s Advantage Report – Travel Retail programme and have already started submitting their feedback.

 

Participants include: executives, senior managers, buyers, category managers and inventory/ logistics personnel.

 

“The Advantage Report serves as an effective tool for improving engagement between travel retailers and suppliers through a 360 degree assessment process,” says Advantage. “This process allows retailers to provide feedback on the performance of their supplier partners and in turn, receive feedback from those suppliers.

 

“As the only global benchmarking study of its kind, Advantage Report not only provides ongoing industry benchmarks across FMCG and other channels, but also helps identify strengths, highlight opportunities and provides key diagnostics to help develop strategy for customer and supplier engagement.”

 

Suppliers or retailers interested in participating should contact Nestor Sanajko, the Global Client Services manager at Advantage International ([email protected]).