Dubai Duty Free, the world’s biggest duty free and travel retail airport operation, generated total sales of $44.33m over 72 hours of its recently featured 25% anniversary discount promotion (18-20 December) – which also coincided with its 33rd anniversary.

 

The operator said that it decided to extend ‘the annual celebration’ beyond the usual one-day due to the fact that passenger traffic has been so high over the last run in to the pre-Christmas holiday.

 

HUGE DAILY SALES TOTALS

The retailer commented: “The anniversary discount for 72 hours resulted in a spending spree at Dubai International and at Al Maktoum International with sales figures on 18th December reaching $9.67m and $9.01m on 19th December. On the anniversary day itself, 20th December, Dubai Duty Free daily sales reached $25.6m in the 24-hour period.

 

“From a category point of view, Perfume was the highest selling category with sales of $6.93m, followed by Watches and Cosmetics on 20th December. Colm McLoughlin, DDF Executive Vice Chairman and CEO described the anniversary celebrations over three days as ‘fantastic’, with positive results across all the concourses.

 

 

He said: “Extending a 25% discount to our customers is our way of saying thank you for their support through the year.”

 

Incredibly, DDF’s Distribution Centre supplied more than 6,198 pallets of merchandise on 592 trips from the warehouse to the airport during the three days, with the highest number tallied on 15 December 973 across 92 trips.

 

At the same time, the total number of picks in the warehouse during this period numbered 91,503 for 2,851,391 units of merchandise, with the highest picks on 10 December of 12,486 picks for over 422,708 units of merchandise.

 

 

In addition, the cash registers rang up a total of 293,903 sales transactions across all three days, with nearly 102,493 recorded on 20 December alone – a far cry from 2003 when DDF first introduced the discount offer.

 

In addition, the retailer also reports that the 33rd anniversary also included celebrations in various locations over the three days led by Colm McLoughlin and Ramesh Cidambi, COO, plus other members of the senior management team who conducted the Millennium Millionaire and Finest Surprise draw.

 

LOOKING AFTER THE STAFF…

A nice touch (as always) was a special Staff Surprise draw where employees shared in a total of more than $23,000 in prize monies. Dubai Duty Free currently employs 5,900 staff and of the original 100 staff who joined in December 1983, 30 still remain in active service.

 

As for winners of the various draws amongst DDF’s customers, Christmas came early for 36-year old Pakistani national from Sharjah Mr. Saad Khan who won $1m in the Dubai Duty Free Millennium Millionaire Promotion in Series no. 232.

 

He was joined by another winner in the Finest Surprise Promotion, where Mr. Prajwal Raj Paudel from Nepal won a Ducati Monster 821 Star White Silk in Series no. 294.