UAE. As Dubai Duty Free prepares to mark its 40th anniversary on 20 December, The Moodie Davitt Report is delighted to chronicle one of travel retail’s greatest stories with this special publication.
From sales of US$20 million in its first full year of trading, Dubai Duty Free reached over US$2 billion in 2019 and is on track to do so again in 2023.
We present highlights of the journey through the eyes of Executive Vice Chairman and CEO Colm McLoughlin, who famously was part of the ten-strong team from Ireland’s state-owned airport company Aer Rianta that led the project to open Dubai Duty Free in 1983. His pioneering influence ever since has been profound.
We also speak to the executive leadership team in detail about their memories and highlights, and we assess where the next wave of investment and innovation will take Dubai Duty Free as it enters its fifth decade.
Dubai Duty Free is much more than a retailer of course.
The promotion of ‘Dubai Inc’ was a core platform of the retailer’s strategy from the beginning. We track the path of a marketing powerhouse down the years, one that has seen Dubai Duty Free become the most recognised retail brand in travel retail, through its pioneering promotions allied to its sporting and sponsorship activities at home and abroad.
Its corporate culture also involves nurturing and taking care of its own people, while also working to improve the lives of those less fortunate in society at home and abroad.
The company was committed to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) long before the term became popularised. Dubai Duty Free was the first travel retailer to create a dedicated in-house CSR function, one that has since been responsible for millions of dollars in donations to local, international and industry causes.
We salute Dubai Duty Free’s four decades of achievement as a retail pioneer and powerhouse, its marketing genius and its deeply ingrained corporate values and ethics. And we are proud to have been asked to tell the story of its journey so far.
Please enjoy this publication, which is mailed to our entire audience in digital format and is available in hard copy both at TFWA World Exhibition and at the Middle East & Africa Duty Free Conference in November. ✈
