 |
SINGAPORE. Indian luxury textiles company Pashma has signed on as the 100th member of the Asia Pacific Travel Retail Association (APTRA). Pashma was followed closely by Australian confectionery company Nutworks and Big Retail, which manages the inflight retail operations across AirAsia and its subsidiary airlines.
The new members bring APTRA’s total to 102 companies – up +15% from 87 in May last year.
The additional members were announced at the Annual General Meeting, which was held during the TFWA Asia Pacific Exhibition & Conference in Singapore this week.
APTRA President Jaya Singh also announced that board members Gerry Munday of Furla and Steffen Brandt of Heinemann Asia Pacific had stepped down due to work commitments. Thibaut de Poutier of Pernod Ricard has also resigned and has been replaced by Ivy Wong of Changi Airport Group.
New members elected to the board are DFS Group Vice President Global Business Development Andrew Ford and JTI Worldwide Duty Free Corporate Affairs & Communications Director Gladys Rodriguez.
In the past year, the APTRA executive office introduced new benefits to members, including advocacy, training, research and access to industry contacts in the Asia Pacific region.
Singh said: “It is my pleasure to welcome Pashma, Nutworks and Big Retail to this busy association. I would like also to welcome our new members to the Board and to express my sincere appreciation to those standing down for their commitment and hard work during their tenure.
“My first term as president has seen exciting plans initiated by my predecessor come to fruition, including the Responsible Retail Training Programme, which is on the brink of region-wide roll-out; the Issues Matrix, which will assist us in our protection of the industry; the APTRA database – an essential resource containing details of all the go-to people in the industry; and our research reports containing actionable data on consumer behaviour by channel, product group and nationality.
He added: “Our objective is to protect and support the duty free and travel retail industry in Asia Pacific and, while we are making great progress, there is still much to do. New challenges appear at every juncture but if we face them as a single unified body we stand a greater chance of success.”
For more information about APTRA, please visit www.aptra.asia or contact info@aptra.asia.
