Grupo Aeroportuario del Sureste (Asur) has told TRBusiness that it is seeking a single master duty free concessionaire for Cancún, the most important airport in its estate, and for Cozumel airport. The retail space available is increasing by at least 70%.

Manuel Gutiérrez Sola, Commercial Director at ASUR, says: “We have started the bidding process for the duty free master concessionaire for Cancún and Cozumel. The tender will be awarded to one master operator for duty free.

“We shall be launching the invitations no later than 30 June and we will give notice to the winner no later than 15 October 2016.”

The current duty free and travel retail operator is Dufry-owned World Duty Free whose contract ends in May 2017. However the new contract, based on retail space, is a much bigger one than at present because it includes the new terminal four at Cancún, as well an infrastructure extension to T3 which was inaugurated in December.

AN EXTRA 2,100SQ M 

Gutiérrez Sola tells TRBusiness: “The new main store in T4 will be 2,100sq m plus additional space for last minute shops and duty paid stores as well.”

This adds to existing DF&TR stores in T2 and T3 of 1,200sq m and 1,800sq m respectively, and effectively means an increase in concession space of at least 70%, TRBusiness understands.

The first phase of T4 is expected to be completed by 2018, giving the airport capacity to handle 25m passengers and completion in 2020 will increase that to 32m.

ASUR RIDES HIGH

Last year, Asur had one of its best ever years posting commercial revenue for 2015 of MXN2.21bn/$122m, up by +26.8%. This was double the traffic rise of +12.9% across its nine airports.

This ensured that non-aeronautical revenue for the listed company rose by +25.9% to MXN2.49bn/$137.5m. Of this, Cancún produced the lion’s share at MXN2.25bn, or 90.4%.