BRAZIL/PARAGUAY. La Petisquera, the long-established South American travel retailer founded by the Mannah family in 1970, is to enter the Brazilian border duty free business in Foz do Iguaçu.
The company will open a 1,870sq m shopping precinct within the Dreams Park Entertainment Center in the Brazilian city in Q2 2024, offering all core duty free categories.
Mannah Group, led by industry pioneer Mohamad ‘Alejandro’ Mannah, has formed a joint-venture company with other industry leaders to execute the project.
These include Sanlar Holding, founded by Carlo Bernasconi, a well-known industry figure whose company brings expertise in shop design, merchandising and international management standards. Pablo Lesme, a senior duty free and consumer retail industry executive in the region, brings knowledge of the local duty free market and will be responsible for company management. The joint venture is bolstered by Mazenta Retail Pte Ltd, an emerging travel retail company that runs duty paid shops at ten Indian airports.
The new business caters for tourists from Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay. Mannah said in a statement, “The tourists who come to this region tend to be regional, but we are seeing increasingly more from North America, Europe and further away. Our team will make sure we will have the right product selection for all visitors.”
Mannah has a long history of operations in the Paraguayan city of Ciudad del Este with border and airport shops; currently the Mannah Group operates four downtown stores in the city. For a period it also ran the departures and arrivals duty free shops at Asunción Silvio Pettirossi International Airport.
The Mannah Group is one of the groups that founded and developed the Ciudad del Este border shopping region. The company said: “The Brazilian border shop regulations around the ‘Lojas Francas’ concept presents a significant opportunity for our company and its partners to develop a world-class duty free environment in Foz do Iguaçu, one of the most important tourist and shopping destinations in Brazil, visited by several million travellers on an annual basis.
“People come here in cars, buses and planes from Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil and beyond. Now in addition to great and varied tourist sites, we can give them a great shopping experience. We believe this is the next logical step towards the evolution of our company to become an even more significant player in the duty free & travel retail business in the region.”
Dreams Park is being developed as a major tourist destination in the region with a wide range of entertainment activities, which include a five-star hotel, Wax Museum, Dinosaur Theme Park and an extensive range of food & beverage outlets including a Harley Davidson Restaurant & Bar and an Ice Bar, among others. The complex is situated just outside Foz Do Iguacu on the road to the city’s airport. 
