Duty free sales at Beijing Capital International Airport, China’s busiest airport and the second busiest airport in the world, rose by 8% in 2015 outpacing the growth of international passenger traffic.

 

Duty free sales reached an estimated RMB 4.1bn (US$661m) last year, up from about RMB 3.8bn (US$630m) in 2014, an informed source at Beijing Airport told TRBusiness on condition of anonymity.

 

The percentage rise in duty free revenue last year is believed to be similar to that recorded in 2014 and occurred in spite of the government’s ban on expensive gift giving to government officials as part of a crackdown on corruption.

 

 

The number of Chinese tourists travelling overseas definitely contributed to the sales growth in 2015, during which the total number of arriving and departing international and domestic passengers reached 89m, up 3.4% from 86.1m in 2014.

 

NEGOTIATIONS CONTINUE FOR SUNRISE…

As mentioned, duty free sales grew by 8% at Beijing Airport last year, which was good news for sole concessionaire, Sunrise Duty Free, which operates stores in terminals 2 and 3.

 

Sunrise has signed a temporary contract extension with Beijing Airport while negotiations continue over a new duty free concession contract after the company’s previous 10-year duty free license expired at the end of 2015.

 

 

Total duty free shopping space is larger in T3, which handles about 75% of all international passengers using Beijing Airport.

 

Meanwhile, Beijing Airport is launching a major upgrade of duty paid luxury travel retail shopping and restaurant facilities in Terminal 2 where some 1,000sq m of additional retail and F&B areas will be added.

 

NEW BRANDS MOVING IN

“Domestic duty paid T2 shop renovations began in April,” the Beijing Airport source said. “The whole project will be complete at the end of 2016.

 

“Duty paid T2 new brands will include Salvatore Ferragamo, Zegna, Shanghai Tang, Coach, MCM, Emporio Armani, Hugo Boss and MaxMara.”

 

Duty paid travel retail revenue at Beijing Airport rose by around 1.1% to reach RMB 910m in 2015 at the airport’s Terminal 1, 2 and 3 shops compared with about RMB 900m the previous year.

 

However, in US dollar terms, foreign exchange rate fluctuations last year resulted in duty paid sales falling slightly to US$147m in 2015 compared with $150m the previous year.

 

DOMESTIC PAX CONTINUES TO GROW

Domestic passenger numbers at Beijing Airport continue to grow, meanwhile, with some 67m arriving and departing domestic travellers using the airport in 2015, up 4.2% compared with 64.3m passengers the previous year.

 

Currently about 129 duty paid shops covering almost 10,00 sq m in retail area are in operation in Beijing Airport’s three terminals of which 90 shops are located airside and 39 are situated landside.