QATAR. Lancôme Travel Retail has partnered with Qatar Duty Free (QDF) to unveil the groundbreaking Café De La Rose concept at Hamad International Airport.
Located in Concourse D, the space fuses beauty, fragrance and gastronomy, drawing on Lancôme’s French heritage and QDF’s expertise in experiential retail to create a hybrid experience for travellers.
The concept showcases Lancôme’s skincare and fragrance portfolio in the atmosphere of a contemporary café that captures the spirit of the Avenue Champs-Elysées in Paris. It offers an environment that is part retail, part café with motifs that draw inspiration from Lancôme’s rose emblem and pink colour palette.
The Lancome Absolue Les Parfums collection is the star of Café De La Rose and features in a dedicated display table at the entrance. Brand Ambassadors are on hand to deliver complimentary skincare services, while ceramic oud bouquet dispensers on each café table add an olfactive element to the experience. In addition, travellers can bring home a personalised Absolue Les Parfums passport which captures their favourite scents as souvenirs.
A blooming gourmet shop
The café offers seating for 28 guests and was created in collaboration with French gastronomy house Lenôtre. It offers five exclusive pastries, crafted especially for Lancôme by World Pastry Champion Étienne Leroy.
These include a reimagining of classic Lenôtre pastry Feuille d’Automne, alongside new creations such as the Lancôme Cheesecake and the signature Rose Agora (pear & lychee) dessert.
Leroy commented: “With La Rose Agora, I wanted to capture the soul of Lancôme in a single bite: the delicacy of a petal, evoking Lancôme’s iconic rose, the power of a fragrance, and the emotion of a season.”
The dessert menu is complemented by a selection of coffee, tea, juices and Champagne. Exclusive Café De La Rose merchandise, including embroidered tote bags to personalised coffee cups, are available at the café.
A new Pentarchy partnership
The opening exemplifies L’Oréal Travel Retail’s Pentarchy partnership approach, which brings airline, airport, retailer, brand and group together to deliver elevated travel retail experiences.
The campaign is supported by different pre-trip touchpoints via Qatar Airways CRM campaigns, in-app engagement and striking OOH media visibility at Hamad International Airport which incorporates digital screens and pink buggies.
Qatar Airways Group Chief Retail & Hospitality Officer Thabet Musleh commented: “Café De La Rose is a perfect example of how our partnerships allow us to bring world-class brands and exceptional concepts to our passengers. Working with Lancôme and L’Oréal Travel Retail, we’ve created a space that blends beauty, fragrance, and gastronomy in a way that’s unique to Hamad International Airport. It’s all about giving passengers reason to pause, engage and enjoy an experience that goes beyond what they expect from an airport visit.”
L’Oréal Travel Retail President Emmanuel Goulin added: “The Café de la Rose in Doha embodies a major strategic ambition for L’Oréal Travel Retail: to turn the airport into an Entertaining Destination.
“By merging Lancôme’s luxury universe with Lenôtre’s exquisite patisserie, we are inviting passengers to an unexpected encounter of French art de vivre. We are reinventing their customer journey to create a sensory and unforgettable beauty moment, fulfilled with immersive discovery and exclusivity.”
The opening of Café De La Rose at Hamad International Airport underlines both QDF’s and L’Oréal Travel Retail’s pioneering spirit and dedication to excellence, according to the partners, who declared that the concept offers travellers a “blossoming new world of beauty, flavour and inspiration” at the airport. ✈
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