The recently renamed Lagardère Travel Retail (LTR) yesterday officially opened its latest, and best iteration of its new Aelia ‘Next Generation’ store design – with some world-first features that make the retail project at Warsaw Chopin Airport (WAW) a flagship operation.

With a lot of space to play with, LTR – a division of the €7.17bn/$7.82bn French media giant Lagardère Group – has capitalised on that by spending €10m/$10.9m to create 25 stores and develop nine concepts, seven of which have been introduced.

Speaking to an audience comprised of airport officials, key suppliers and partners, and three duty free and travel retail media, LTR Chairman and CEO, Dag Rasmussen, said: “We were happy to spend that money. This project is a great proof of what we can do across all three of our business lines: Duty Free & Luxury, Travel Essentials and Foodservice.”

Across WAW’s 9,000sq m of retail space in the interlinked terminals one and two, LTR now operates about 5,000sq m in T1 (+70% more than there was previously), split between foodservice (43%), duty free/luxury (39%), and travel essentials (19%).

‘WE CAN OPTIMISE THE FULL CUSTOMER PATH…’

Last year, Rasmussen told TRBusiness that he believed LTR had won the 10-year contract at WAW, in large part, due to the fact that the division could offer strong competence across these pillars.

Yesterday, speaking to TRBusiness, he emphasised: “We are the only retailer to have this focus on all three areas. It’s a differentiating strategy and it allows us to optimise the full customer path.”

This means that at WAW, for example, Lagardère is running cross-promotions or loyalty programmes, encouraging passengers to shop – both product and concept-wise – across the three business lines using discounts, for example, as incentives.

Rasmussen adds: “With all three segments present we were able to develop some new concepts and take risks. If some things don’t work we only have to consult with the airport to make a change.”

AIRPORT FIRSTS IMPROVE SERVICE

Novelties and airport firsts include a mini-foodcourt that uses single-payment cards at the end to give passenger more time to order and eat; the Let’s Book proprietary e-book platform; and a large Samsung store.

The mini-food court consists of three brands: McDonald’s, Bricco Café (Italian), and Chief’s (Polish/international). Rather than just choosing one option and paying at that counter, passengers can shop at all three using a card they are given that is loaded up with the items they have bought, and which they pay for when they leave.

Let’s Book is available in nine stores inside WAW such as Relay, Virgin and Discover. It allows passengers to choose their book title, pay the cover price at the register and then download it to their e-book reader. Meanwhile the Samsung store has a very wide array of the brand’s products and will feature first-to-market products in Poland.

NO WALKTHROUGH

While these are interesting and novel elements, it is the core-category products that will drive LTR’s sales at WAW. In T2, however, the retailer does not have the convenience of a single walkthrough DF&TR store which Rasmussen admits would have been preferable.

Instead, there are two large Aelia shops for beauty and for wines and spirits, confectionery and other items both of which have signature features of the Aelia ‘Next Generation’ concept. [For full details of the four key elements, read our interview with Aelia Managing Director, Ambroise Fondeur, here.]

Both stores offer digital convenience through features such as a B2C website (www.aeliadutyfree.pl) to see what is available and what is on sale; the possibility to pre-order online and collect in-store; and all the staff in-store equipped with tablets for instant information and service.

The key issue for the liquor section is that it is not visible to passengers after they leave security. Travellers can clearly see the beauty unit directly ahead, but the large and well-appointed liquor store is tucked away around the corner.

To lure passengers’ in this direction a new food store called Premium Food Gate has been positioned next to beauty and in front of the liquor store. It fulfils the ‘Here and Nowhere Else’ aspect of the Aelia ‘Next Generation’ concept, which is all about localisation

The store offers Polish food and drink products from 65 local and regional producers with Polish wine unexpectedly seeing the strongest sales in the deli-style store. “This is not cut-and-paste or plug-and-play because we believe travel retail should not be boring,” says Rasmussen.

THIRD FASHION GALLERY WORLDWIDE

Another first for WAW is the arrival of The Fashion Gallery – only the third in the world after the debut at Singapore Changi and more recently at Madrid Airport. The high-end multi-brand store features labels such as Burberry, Ermenegildo Zegna, Salvatore Ferragamo, Michael Kors and Ralph Lauren, that don’t have big presences in the local market.

Nearby is a Victoria’s Secret store and another called Le Connaisseur where a range of very high-end and exclusive spirits and cigars are available as well as a wine tasting service. The least expensive product in the store is a single Davidoff cigar at PLN35/$9.25 a store staff member tells TRBusiness. This rises to PLN28,500/$7,540 for a special edition Delamain Cognac.

“The global brands now available in our shopping arcade will allow passengers to feel as if they were at the best Paris, London or Milan department stores, which is exactly what our customers expect,” says Michał Kaczmarzyk, Director of Chopin Airport.

With its stores now in place, Lagardère Travel Retail hopes to capitalise from a strong passenger market at WAW which is 75% Polish, highly-educated and skewed strongly to men (61%).

Last year the airport processed 10.5m passengers and in the first half of 2015 it handled 5.17m up +7.4% with international growth even better at +9.1 to over 4.6m. By 2024 the forecast is for traffic to top 15m.

SIX NEXT-GEN LOCATIONS FOR 2015

Elsewhere, LTR is set to continue its rollout of Aelia ‘Next Generation’. Marseille was the pilot in November 2014, followed by Zagreb and Auckland – and now WAW. “By the end of the year we will have Nice T1 and Luton,” comments Rasmussen.

On how the model is performing, he adds: “All openings are recent and they are performing as expected. Warsaw is really a proof-of-concept because we have all three pillars here.”