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Flying Kiwi: Yong Chan Lee’s dynamic travel retail company Kiwi Discovery wins national recognition for business excellence |
NEW ZEALAND. Travel retail company Kiwi Discovery has been awarded four major awards for business excellence and opened a new downtown store in New Zealand’s biggest city, Auckland
Kiwi Discovery won the following awards during the month:
– The 2004 New Zealand Tourism Awards, Retail and Hospitality category
– Supreme Business of the Year, 2004 Westpac Manukau Business Excellence Awards
– Best Retailer, 2004 Westpac Manukau Business Excellence Awards
– Tourism Award, 2004 Westpac Manukau Business Excellence Awards
A spokesperson told The Moodie Report: “The Tourism Awards are the highest accolade possible for any New Zealand tourism business.”
The Manukau awards are a local programme for Manukau City businesses. Manukau is one of the four cities that make up Auckland, where Auckland International Airport and where three of the Kiwi Discovery operations.
Kiwi Discovery encompasses four individual operations: Kiwi Discovery, Merino Discovery and Sushi Bar Hayama – all based at Auckland International Airport – and Ocean Discovery – a venture based at Auckland’s new fish market which was recently opened by the New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark.
In a crowded duty free marketplace at Auckland International Airport Limited, Kiwi Discovery Limited has thrived as an independent company competing with multi-nationals such as DFS Group and Regency Duty Free (The Nuance Group). Within seven years of commencing operations the company forecasts that it will exceed NZ$11 million (US$7.3 million) in turnover this year.
The company was founded in 1997 by Korean expatriate, Yong Chan Lee, following extensive market research that took into account emerging trends and customer demand from increasing numbers of Asian tourists to New Zealand.
It began operations with the Kiwi Discovery Tax Free Shop which opened in November 1997 airside with a 30sq m store at Auckland International Airport (now 70sq m).
Marketing there is strongly focused on Asian tourists with in-store merchandising changed several times a day to reflect the nationalities of groups in the airport at specific times.
Kiwi Discovery claims to be the first and only souvenir shop in the duty free area to specialise in New Zealand-made quality fine food. Its range includes seafood (paua, Bluff oysters, salmon, crayfish, mussels), dairy products, beef and venison jerky, honey, chocolates, jams and health foods.
Kiwi Discovery then opened Sushi Bar Hayama landside at the airport in 2000, having noted that Japanese visitors were unable to source the traditional type of breakfast they prefer. The restaurant seats 90 and regularly hosts between 200 and 400 for breakfast.
The next venture at Auckland International Airport was the landside 67sq m Merino Discovery Tax Free Shop which opened in June 2003. It is the first souvenir shop to specialise in New Zealand-made merino fashion and accessories.
In 2004, Kiwi Discovery’s directors were approached to open a store at the new Auckland Fish Market, based in central Auckland near the America’s Cup Village – the company’s first initiative outside the confines of Auckland International Airport. Ocean Discovery sells the freshest fish available from the Auckland Fish Market.
