FRANCE. AFCOV (Association Française du Commerce du Voyageur) has released the latest edition of its Index, covering the full year 2007.
The Index, created in 2002, is designed to measure sales patterns across the key travel retail locations in France’s Espace Voyageur network.
The 2007 AFCOV Index makes generally encouraging reading for the French travel retail industry, with sales figures consistently ahead of 2006 in all product categories. However, a comparison of sales per passenger suggests that in some categories, turnover growth is largely a result of increases in traffic.
The Index demonstrates an especially good year for liquor sales in French travel retail. Monthly turnover for this category showed consistent double-digit increases compared with 2006, reaching a year-on-year high of +34.6% in August 2007.
In spend-per-passenger terms the category also performed well ahead of the previous year, and was +24.6% up in August.
In the fragrance/cosmetics and tobacco categories, the 2007 Index also shows steady growth in sales, but sales per passenger struggled to match 2006 figures. Tobacco sales per passenger were consistently below those posted in 2006, while the figures for fragrances and cosmetics were boosted by a strong beginning and end to 2007.
In the “other products” category – including fashion, watches and jewellery – sales were well ahead of the 2006 figure with sales per passenger also on an upward trend, despite a slow start to the year.
Generally speaking, the 2007 Index shows a French industry in an encouraging phase of growth; but there remains the potential to improve sales yield.
It is expected that new developments in the country’s airport retail sector this year – such as renovation projects at Paris Orly, Paris Charles de Gaulle and Nantes airports – will provide a strong platform for progress.
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