In what the European Travel Retail Confederation (ETRC) are labelling a ‘crucial year’, former confederation President, Nigel Keal was unanimously re-elected at the Annual General Meeting (AGM), which took place on 14 June in Paris.

 

Keal has served on the Supervisory Board of ETRC since 2010, the Managing Board since 2017 and as President from June 2019 to January 2022 when he initially stepped down due to other commitments until his re-election last week.

 

Keal commented: “I’m fully committed and proud to serve ETRC for one more year, especially after an extremely difficult period which has deeply affected the travel retail realm.

 

“We are definitely heading towards brighter times, however, it’s crucial to tackle operational issues arising from the rapid restart of the travel and tourism sector. I strongly believe that with the support of all our members and partners at the national level we can make it happen.”

 

UPDATE ON EU VAT TOURISM PACKAGE

The AGM gathered over 50 representatives coming from corporate membership and national and regional associations of ETRC who were connecting in person for the first time since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic and the last ETRC physical event in January 2020.

 

Sustainability of duty free and travel retail was the common theme of the day, following the endorsement by ETRC earlier this year of the “EU Toulouse Declaration on future sustainability and decarbonisation of aviation”.

 

Participants could hear from Bertrand de Lacombe, Director of European and international affairs at the French Civil Aviation Authority, who presented international and EU developments regarding the decarbonisation of aviation.

 

Furthermore, ETRC updated members about ongoing campaigns and issues, notably the upcoming publication of the EU VAT Tourism Package which could provide a framework to the potential introduction of Arrivals Duty Free shopping in the EU. The relaunch of the Duty Free Label project also featured highly on the agenda given the acceleration of digital labelling initiatives at EU level.

 

To conclude the day, an interactive workshop was led by prof. Edina Doci, Sustainability Leadership Hub Director at the Free University of Amsterdam, to support the development of an ETRC strategy identifying areas for action to support sustainability goals and promote collaboration with members.