Frédéric Chevalier, Co-CEO Lagardère Travel Retail.

Navigating the shifting business landscape in North Asia, calling upon DF&TR stakeholders to work together to address softening spend per passenger (SPP) and the need to cater to all budgets are among the key topics discussed by Frédéric Chevalier, Co-CEO Lagardère Travel Retail in this exclusive video interview filmed during the 2025 TFWA World Exhibition in Cannes.

Addressing the business challenges in North Asia and particularly China, he told TRBusiness: “It’s true that the Chinese market is going through a massive transformation – essentially because the Chinese consumers changed their patterns of consumption. We see that worldwide, in Paris Airport, Rome Airport, in Oceania and in China where we operate a large network.”

Recognising the “big pressure” the market is under due to this, he explained that the company is “adjusting its store network to the new reality of Chinese consumption”.

“In most cases it leads to closure of stores – we regret that,” he said. However the objective is, of course, to “operate in a profitable manner”.

“We are navigating a complicated environment where in the end the business is scaling down and we’re scaling down [in China],” he said adding that while China is a big market for Lagardère Travel Retail, there are compelling business hotspots in the region such as Japan, Hong Kong, Cambodia and Singapore.

“We have trust in Asia and we hope the Chinese market will stabilise and we’re pretty sure it will rebound soon.”

Chevalier also offered his perspective on the “complicated but crucial” question of falling SPP and, in some cases, the decline in volume sales, and how each stakeholder needs to play a role in navigating this.

“In the past years, a lot of premiumisation has been done by the brands… this obviously goes with higher price points and the risk of doing this is possibly missing a more democratic offer,” he said.

While recognising the need to cater to high-end needs, he stressed the importance of also offering more affordable items and how the retailer is helping airports create stores that do just that.

“Our role is to build a relevant offer targeting all the pax so that in the end we have the highest reach, covering la the needs, all the passengers, and growing the cake to the benefit of the airports, for sure and the brand,” he summarised.

“We need to cover the whole spectrum, which is a challenging and changing mission, but a very exciting one because we believe this is the way to regain momentum and positive growth on spend per pax in the years to come.”

In this exchange, Chevalier moves on to talk in-depth about the challenge of restoring the duty free price promise for shoppers–  what that means and ways to activate that in today’s landscape, including how the solution goes way beyond discipline of price.

The spotlight also shines on Africa and the untapped potential for growth on the continent.

Furthermore, the evolution of Relay is zoomed in on as an example of how Lagardère Travel Retail is continuously evolving its offering to keep pace with the demands of travellers.

“Food is now a critical pillar in the offer of such stores because when we connect our store with consumer habits we realise that more and more people eat on-the-go,” he said, noting that this is not something that’s in competition with legacy restaurants but its simply reflective of modern consumption habits.

Finally, he spoke of recent tender wins such as securing a 10-year contract to operate duty free stores at London Luton Airport – the results of which are due to come to life on 1 November 2026, encompassing a significant increase in duty free retail space, from the current 2,530 sqm to 3,340 sqm.

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