Our regular feature, brought to you in association with Duty Free Global from Ireland, celebrates memorable scenes, moments, launches and campaigns related to the global aviation and travel retail sphere.
The sheer reach – not only geographically, but in terms of footfall and revenue potential – and visibility of travel retail is brilliantly captured in three recent Avolta LinkedIn posts, which we feature as today’s Images of the Day.
The travel retail and food & beverage powerhouse recently revealed its annual report for 2025 and shared some of the key figures on LinkedIn.
“You’ve been our guest, you just didn’t know it. That coffee before boarding, the perfume at duty free, your motorway snack, that was us,” Avolta commented.
“We are the world’s largest travel retail and F&B player, hiding in plain sight.”
That striking message, captures the scale and ubiquity of Avolta’s global operations.
Reacting to the post, Avolta Chief Digital, Data & Technology Officer Vijay Talwar said: “I still get a lot of questions about where do I work, where do I live and what does the company do? This post from Avolta answers many questions – largest duty-free retailer, largest convenience store network at airports and the largest food & beverage operations as well.
“The company HQ is in Basel, Switzerland and we did around US$19 billion in revenue last year.”
A complementary perspective came from Avolta Global SVP Advertising & Commercialization Richy Ugwu. He said: “Over the last months, I kept getting the same question: ‘What exactly is Avolta?’ Here’s the short version: We are the world’s largest travel retailer and F&B operator. 5,000+ stores. 70+ countries. 350+ airports.
“And most importantly: one in four travellers globally interacts with Avolta. That’s 2.5 billion per year,” he continued.
“At that scale, you’re not just a retailer. You’re one of the largest media platforms in the world. That’s exactly what we’re building – turning travel retail into a true media channel.”
Ugwu added: “We recently hosted our first Advertising Summit in Berlin with 150+ brand and agency leaders. The takeaway is clear: travel media is about to have its moment.”
That sentiment was echoed by The Moodie Davitt Report Founder & Chairman Martin Moodie, who heralded Ugwu’s description of the channel as “among the best descriptions of travel retail’s merits” he has heard in a 39-years sector career.
Moodie observed: “Among the first things I learned about this sector was its shop window status for brands, as well as its direct sales value. But that shop window is far greater than most, including many brand CEOs, realise.
“I am often asked by bemused friends, ‘What is it exactly you do?’ (just as you, Richy, are asked ‘What is Avolta?’). I try to go beyond the obvious, i.e. the importance of commercial revenues, and move instead to my favourite subject, what airports actually are.
“Yes, they are (often maginificent) pieces of infrastructure; yes, they underpin the travel sector globally; yes, they sell and serve lots of interesting stuff.
“But they are so much more,” Moodie added. “They are crossroads of humanity, inhabited by an ever-changing cast of millions each day sojourning in, out and through them.
“They are vast pools of emotion: happiness, excitement, sadness and, not least, love. They are defiers of barriers: gender, race, culture, religion, class. They are invariably the first and last impression of a city.
“They are, at best, a wonderful showcase for local culture (see my Vancouver Airport Blog). To your point, what better media platform can there be?”
Taken together, the commentary underlines a key truth about Avolta and, by extension, the wider travel retail channel: Today, travel retail is no longer simply a point-of-sale but a powerful platform for engagement and storytelling. ✈
