Our regular feature, brought to you in association with Strange Nature Gin from New Zealand, celebrates memorable scenes, moments, launches and campaigns related to the global aviation and travel retail sphere.
USA. Today’s images celebrate a modest but important (and growing) success story in the travel retail industry.
They come from Core Plus Duty Free, which runs retail at Melbourne Orlando International Airport’s Tui International Terminal in Central Florida.
As Owner/Operator Brittany Williams Leverett notes on LinkedIn, the company has just celebrated its fifth anniversary.
In that half decade Core Plus Duty Free has gone from a first-year profit of just US$2,000 on a four-figure turnover to a seven-digit sales number in 2023.
The travel retail community is dotted with great entrepreneurial stories sprung from humble beginnings. Think no further than DFS Group, founded by Bob Miller and Chuck Feeney, whose first two stores (Honolulu and Hong Kong airports) in the early 1960s were mere kiosks. Core Duty Free Plus is quietly going about creating its own impressive narrative.
Today Core Plus Duty Free serves passengers from 16 flights weekly during peak season. And judging by all the evidence, serves them very well. ✈
