The Asia Pacific Travel Retail Association (APTRA) has announced that it is broadening its membership to include companies, which can offer services of value to its membership and to the industry as a whole.

 

The association says that members voted in an extraordinary general meeting to amend the association’s statutes to include a new category of ‘Associated Member’ on Wednesday 11 May at it AGN held at the Singapore TFWA Asia Pacific Exhibition & Conference.

 

Commenting, President Jaya Singh said: “The initiative to facilitate a new category of associate member follows expressions of interest in membership from various companies offering services which are associated with, or relevant to, the duty free and travel retail business in the Asia Pacific region.

 

 

“These may include food and beverage operators, research consultancies, investment companies and other consultancies involved in the duty free and travel retail business.

 

“We believe that the inclusion of these companies will add depth and weight to our membership base and will help us to represent better the broader travel retail community. We look forward to adding their expertise to our skills bank.”

 

PEOPLE MATTERS AT APTRA

In terms of housekeeping, the tenure of the two existing Board members representing DFS and Japan Tobacco International were extended by one year to bring them into line with others – with all members of the Board now able to stand for re-election in May 2017.

 

Teo Chew Hoon has also been named as the member representative from Changi Airport Group following the promotion of Ivy Wong and during the year Andrew Cunningham took the place of Dr Jennifer Cords representing Imperial Tobacco.

 

 

Jaya Singh continued: “We are delighted to welcome Chew Hoon and we acknowledge the tremendous contribution that Ivy has made to the association. It is fundamental to the effectiveness of our work that we have a Board which is representative of the various stakeholders of the industry.”

 

Singh reported on the activities of the association over the past year including the publication of seven research reports, the roll out of the Responsible Retail Training Programme with over 650 staff trained to date, and the association’s leading role in advocacy efforts across the region.

 

MUMBAI BECKONS IN JUNE

He said that APTRA had also disseminated the key results of the research reports at a series of Insights Seminars in 2015. The first Insight Seminar of the 2016 programme took place over breakfast on 11th May at TFWA Asia Pacific.

 

The next seminar will be staged in Mumbai on 20th June at the JW Marriott Mumbai Juhu immediately prior to the DFNI Conference ‘India Rising’. Other seminars in Hong Kong and Sydney will be announced in due course.