INTERNATIONAL. Having made its airport retailing debut in spectactular style at Incheon International Airport last Saturday, Louis Vuitton will consider other airport locations, provided the terms and conditions are right.
That”˜s the message from Louis Vuitton President and Director General Yves Carcelle, speaking to The Moodie Report in an exclusive interview* after last Saturday’s opening at the Korean gateway.
Carcelle said that Incheon had fulfilled a number of key criteria. “Globally the airport is very nicely built and the way they have dedicated space to retail is one of the best,” he said. “You sometimes have airports where terminals are not connected. If you look at Heathrow or Charles de Gaulle, where do you put a store if you want it in a prominent position? Just imagine that the proposal is again for 600sq m. At Charles de Gaulle is it Terminal A, B, C, D or E or F? Or at Heathrow, which terminal?
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Yves Carcelle, Chairman and CEO, Louis Vuitton: Incheon offered the perfect conditions for entry | |
“So here, due to the way the airport was designed there was one central position”¦ that was corresponding to our requirements. It’s one big location, exactly in the middle where everybody can see it.
“They also understood all our requirements. We wanted to express our universe”¦ so that people rushing around in the airport and feeling stressed suddenly discover this beautiful picture by Steve McCurry [pictured below, located in the main entrance]. We want them to dream again about travel, to forget about the stress of today and say travelling must be a pleasure.
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The exquisite entrance area is deliberately free of product but replete with imagery in order to alleviate travellers’ stress |
“Then we wanted different rooms [within the store]. Yes, you are at an airport and sometimes people are hurrying but we did not to degrade the selling ceremony. Yes, we wanted to be fast because people can be in a hurry in an airport, but you can be both fast and high quality. That means having a lot of staff in the store and an efficiency of organisation in terms of back of house. So it’s efficient, but it has to be exactly the same service as if you were downtown in a very luxury store – it’s exactly the same environment as if the store was in the centre of Hong Kong or Singapore or Seoul.
“No other airports have fulfilled those conditions, apart from the financial considerations. They [Incheon International Airport Corporation] understood their own interests”¦ so they were also pragmatic on the financial conditions. But that’s not the key reason [for us being here]; the key reason was the existence of a unique, key location in the middle of the terminal with sufficient surface, in a qualitative environment.”
Louis Vuitton Asia Pacific President Jean-Baptiste Debains added: “There is a rivalry and a national pride around airports which is great. I’m sure that now this store is open it will raise even more interest. We’re open in the future to consider it but we will never compromise on the quality of the environment.”
*NOTE: The full interview with Carcelle and Debains appears in this week’s edition of The Moodie Report e-Zine, out later today.
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(Left to right): Ms Lee Boo-Jin, CEO and President, Hotel Shilla; Yves Carcelle, Chairman and CEO, Louis Vuitton; Lee Chae-Wook, CEO, Incheon International Airport; and Jean-Baptiste Debains, President, Louis Vuitton Asia Pacific |
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These pictures capture the spectacular shop frontage of the new store |
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