UK. A powerful quartet of travel retailers is contesting the tax and duty free tender at Bristol International Airport, which closed late last month.
The Moodie Report understands reliably from sources in the vendor community that four companies – Autogrill subsidiary WDF, Aelia, Harding Brothers and incumbent The Nuance Group – have bid on the contract which begins on 1 November. The contract tenure remains to be finalised.
Bristol International Airport Head of Retail Simon Preece flatly declined to identify the bidders, but confirmed that four parties were involved.
“We have had a really good response,” he told The Moodie Report, noting that the airport company had since met all bidders to discuss their respective plans.
“We’re in the process of getting to a shorter list in the next week or two, and we want to be talking to a preferred bidder by August,” he said.
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Bristol International Airport can be rightly delighted in having attracted such a quality quartet |
Preece said the airport company was “absolutely delighted” with the quality of responses from all bidders. “We had four parties who for their own strategic reasons don’t want to miss out. And for our part we’ve tried to create much more of an opportunity than simply rolling up and taking over the existing shop.
“We’ve been prepared to put our own money behind a major retail development and create something fantastic,” Preece said in a reference to the airport’s planning application that has been submitted to North Somerset Council.
This includes proposals for terminal extensions to the east and west of the existing building, focusing on increasing the space for check-in and security facilities.
The airport will be working with the successful bidder to develop a “state-of-the-art” new walk-through tax and duty free shop, creating an enlarged anchor retail store within the departure lounge, it said. Those plans are being developed together with leading UK consultant The Design Solution.
MORE ON THE BRISTOL INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT TENDER
‘Choice, value and service’ as Bristol International Airport tenders tax and duty free – 09/02/09
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