Japanese travel retail operator Fa-So-La Duty Free reopened several duty free and standalone fashion shops at Tokyo Narita Airport’s 5th Avenue shopping mall earlier this month, including two duty free liquor and tobacco stores, plus boutiques featuring Burberry, Coach and Samantha Thavasa.

 

As reported last October, these shops closed temporarily for full ‘major refits’ on 1 November 2015, with the boutique stores reopening on February 4 and the Fa-So-La Duty Free liquor and tobacco outlets opening slightly earlier on 29 January.

 

 

The Burberry store represents the fashion company’s first airport duty free shop in Japan, while Samantha Thavasa offers a range of fashion items, as well as numerous collaboration items. At the same time, the liquor and tobacco stores are now the first Fa-So-La outlets to feature wine cellars for the very first time – plus tasting bars.

 

The T2 5th Avenue shopping mall is now eight years old and this refurbishment is all part of an overall renovation of the operator’s shops as part of preparations for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, according to Takumi Shimizu, Director of International Product Division I in NAA Retailing Corporation’s Fa-So-La Shops Purchasing Department.

 

This is now a major programme going forward, considering the number of shops managed by Fa-So-La at Narita rose by almost 50% after last year’s April merger with the NAA Service Corporation.

 

 

This included taking over the 28 landside shops operated by NAA Services and merging them with Fa-So-La’s 55 outlets.

 

Fa-So-La now manages 83 stores in the duty free and public areas in the terminals at Tokyo Narita International Airport, plus three at Narita Airport facilities and one at Tokyo Haneda Airport International Terminal.

 

 

Last year the company reported JPY47.3bn in sales covering its fiscal 2014 period, with the duty free component accounting for around 40% of total revenue (+18% in FY 2014) while boutiques sales accounted for 16% (+28%). By contrast, tax free transactions accounted for about 40% of sales (+18%).

 

[With additional reporting from David Hayes, TRBusiness’ Asia Correspondent].