ESTONIA. Tallink Grupp underlined its belief in the future of travel and travel retail on Thursday by hosting a spectacular celebration of its shopping offer onboard the new MyStar cruise ferry.
At 2,500sq m over two decks, the €247 million vessel – which serves the vital Tallinn-Helsinki route – houses the largest retail environment of any ship in the Baltic Sea, with many market firsts from brand partners.
The Moodie Davitt Report was among 200 guests invited to travel on the ship for a special inauguration event at the Traveller Superstore, hosted by Tallink Grupp Member of the Management Board Piret Mürk-Dubout and Tallink Duty Free Member of the Management Board Aimar Pärna, plus their wider teams.
Tallink Grupp and Tallink Duty Free senior management hail the partners that helped the MyStar retail project come to life
Welcoming guests onboard this morning, Pärna said: “Some stars shine brighter than others. Today we can say we are part of the brightest star in the Baltic Sea and in the Nordics. The sea has been a barrier between people but it has also been an age-old way to connect people, countries and cultures. Sea journeys have always been part of the travel trade.
“Despite the difficulties of the past two years we did not give up on our plan to build a sister ship for Megastar. A big part of this achievement belongs to you, our dear partners. We thank you for your support and cooperation.
“This is the ninth new ship from Tallink since 2002. In that time our goal has not simply been to build beautiful or fast ships, but they have been built for our customers, who deserve the best travelling environment, the best services, the best brands and offers. I’m very thankful to all of the Tallink Duty Free crew also.”
Mürk-Dubout added: “Thanks you for joining us on the biggest shopping mall in the Baltic Sea. We have been dreaming, and suffering, over the past couple of years. But now this boat represents something new – new state-of-the-art technology, new environments – everything that makes for the best possible customer experience.
“Our vision and belief is that we provide the nicest way to travel. That is about our shopping, dining, entertainment, our spaces onboard.
“We are celebrating creativity, cooperation, trust that you have given us, and the trustworthiness within our partnership. Now travel retail needs more surprises, more entertainment, more creativity, as that helps us all get back to normal, even in spite of the geopolitical background.
“Let’s enjoy the experience of shopping and travelling onboard, and let’s exchange new ideas, with new brands and new product lines that create an emotional travel experience onboard. We hope that this new star on the Baltic Sea is a celebration that we are over the difficult times.”
Click above for short videos depicting key zones within the retail environment
The MyStar shopping arena represents the next generation of cruise ferry in the Tallink fleet, with similarities to its sister ship Megastar but also some key enhancements in the shopping areas. Overall, it houses 2,500 brands and 30,000 SKUs.
The centrepiece of the two-deck retail arena is the eye-catching promotional space, surrounded by captivating digital features (digital displays offer impressive impact throughout the store), as guests come down from deck eight to deck seven within the environment. This houses a series of hugely impactful campaigns and launches, with brands including Toblerone, Finlandia, Lancôme and Lombard wines currently on display. Others will enter this sought-after space over coming months.
Another big highlight is an expansive Nordic Corner on deck seven, featuring a Moomin area including a fun photo opportunity with the Moomin ‘family’ of characters. Finnish brands such as design house Marimekko and Globe Hope also feature prominently.
The vast perfumes & cosmetics space spanning 500sq m is a key attraction on deck eight as guests enter the store – and represents a new standard for beauty in the regional maritime travel retail market. Crucially, noted many brands, the environments and ranges match or exceed what regional consumers expect from the best downtown stores.
Shop-in-shops for key brands La Mer, Jo Malone and Kiehl’s anchor one end of the store, with classic names Dior, Chanel and Lancôme at the other, alongside trendy and emerging labels including Benefit, Moroccanoil, Vichy, Nuxe and – a first for the cruise ferry business in Europe – La Roche Posay.
Another first for Tallink is Kylie by Kylie Jenner, with other cosmetics brands newly listed including Tilk (Estonia), Luuv (Estonia), Magrada organic cosmetics (Estonia) and Luonkos (Finland). Other local Nordic brands represented include Lumene (Finland), Madara and D’Difference (Estonia).
Fashion & accessories spans 700sq m across the Superstore. Men’s fashion on deck eight receives an impressive focus, with brands including Gant, Camel, Tommy Hilfiger, Superdry and a new brand for Tallink, Lindberg of Denmark.
A broad accessories area features jewellery, watches and handbags across price points with display areas targeting younger shoppers. Here, brands include Vans, Jack and Jones, New Era, Only and Tommy Hilfiger.
Other accessories brands ranging from bags to sunglasses include Furla, Coccinelle, Bally, Coach and Samsonite Victorinox, Swarovski, Gucci, St. Laurent, Michael Kors, Prada, Vouge, Versace, Ray Ban and Oakley.
New listings for local brands include Aegaon watches (Estonia), Valent womenswear, Xenia Joost scarves (Estonia), Haga Moomin reading glasses from Haga Optic (Finland), Moomin pearls for girls (Finland), Alpaka (Estonia) scarves, hats and plaids made from alpaca wool.
A fashion pop-up area (currently housing Calvin Klein) features a regularly changing selection of goods that are exclusive to MyStar within the Tallink fleet.
Well-ranged wines & spirits, tobacco and confectionery offers are located on deck seven, alongside a pre-order zone that underlines Tallink’s drive to enhance its digital services.
Products exclusive to MyStar in these zones include Veuve Clicquot MyStar Champagne, Estonian handcrafted Junimperium MyStar Special Edition gin, MyStar flagship Cognac by Larsen and Teerenpeli MyStar special edition single malt whiskey in liquor. Sense of Place is further enhanced in the drinks offer by key local distiller Liviko, with its Crafter’s gin and Vana Tallinn brands, among others.
In chocolate, exclusives include a chocolate pralines special edition from Fazer, MyStar a ‘Greetings from the Captain’ bar from Orkla, as well as a MyStar special edition from Toblerone and a Tallink MyStar Detox Vitamineral vitamin drink.
New brands in confectionery include Millennium (Ukraine), Roosiku (Estonia), Popoco (Estonia), Vinkymon (Estonia) and lines that chime with Tallink’s strong sustainability drive including Natty organic craft nut butters, Remedyway treats from certified organic farming and Meki freezer dried berries.
Among the new drinks brands onboard are Nude Cider natural craft ciders, Helsinki Long Drink ready-to-drink cocktails, Gindome gin, Lahentagge gin and Gold Bar whiskey from California.
Brands that we spoke to onboard highlighted a number of key aspects of the store environment and offer, led by the impact of digital and the opportunity for experiential engagement and the enhanced space devoted to the major categories compared to many traditional ferry stores. Many noted that Tallink had challenged them to take new or first-at-sea approaches to their spaces, with testing and trial onboard prominent.
Sustainability in the ship building, the design of space and in the product selection is another feature of MyStar. The design theme is the beauty of the Baltic Sea, a story told through various interior cues, colours, furnishings, lighting and through video and photos. Crucially, all aspects of the ship were imagined by one designer, well-known Finnish designer Vertti Kivi. This gives the vessel a holistic look throughout, with retail blending neatly with restaurants, entertainment zones and other areas.
Passenger profiles
On the Tallinn-Helsinki route, the highest spending nationality are Finns, which also represent 41% of total passengers fleet-wide (2021 numbers), followed by Estonians (30%) and Swedes (13%). Pre-pandemic, Asian visitors accounted for 8-10% of passenger numbers though this fell to just 1% when travel to the region was curtailed through COVID.
Mürk-Dubout said: “We hope for an increase in the presence of Asian travellers onboard, with bookings currently led by Japanese, Koreans and Singaporeans, with Chinese to follow in time. We are also seeing encouraging numbers from North America – which is partly due to the flight connections offered by Finnair to our region, in the recent absence of Asian routes.”
Passenger volumes will be one dynamic that dictates the fortunes of the retail business – of the 15-strong Tallink fleet, six are chartered out currently – but there are others, as Mürk-Dubout highlighted. “We are seeing changes in our traveller mix since the return to sailing. More families is one, and we find that they are showing strong consumption trends in retail. Another is the emergence of the youth segment on Swedish routes, to which we need to cater with the right selection of brands.”
Reflecting on almost three years of upheaval caused by the pandemic – and compounded by the Russia-Ukraine conflict – Mürk-Dubout said: “We have faced an unprecedented situation but we are coming out of it with confidence in the future and a belief in our ability to grow again.”
Pre-crisis Tallink Grupp (with its Tallink and Silja Line cruise ferry brands) served 9.8 million travellers; following a desperately difficult two years a strong rebound in 2022 saw this figure reach 5.5 million, with hopes that the group can reach at least 7-7.5 million in 2023.
Building back – and broader ambitions
Mürk-Dubout said that Tallink’s long-term strategy to expand its retail reach beyond the maritime channel and beyond the Nordic region, remained unchanged.
“We want to expand longer term in travel retail to new regions. What gives us hope is that we see more offers where airports combine retail and dining, which we operate ourselves. We can provide the level of service required. We monitor bids around the world, and have even entered some negotiations, but our firm focus is on rebuilding the core business over the next two to three years.
“With a big loan taken on through COVID we have to work ourselves back financially too. We also need to regain the trust of travellers and be that reliable provider of services once more.”
On recent trading and consumer confidence, Mürk-Dubout said: “Key indicators for retail of course include inflation, consumption power and the spending portfolio. Energy prices eat up people’s ability to spend elsewhere, and we see in the first two weeks of January that the shopping basket is a bit lower than average. It’s too early to tell if this is a post-Christmas effect or something else.
“We know too that supply chains are becoming more robust. Now we know we will get products and be able to satisfy demand, also helped by managing our own warehousing and logistics.
“Our plan overall is to keep the shopping basket on the same level as 2022, and to increase via new launches and partnerships our main categories including spirits, beauty, confectionery and fashion.”
Asked what her key message to the industry would be as the business returns, Mürk-Dubout said: “We should have more courage and try to get back the uniqueness of travel retail. We need the emotion that travel retail has always represented, that surprising mood we had in the past, along with that first-in-line attitude to newness.
“Even if it is a small part of the business for brands, it is a big part of the image-building. So we need to get back this attractiveness of travel retail, which would be mutually beneficial for all parties.
“If we mutually take responsibility but also a little risk, there are opportunities around the corner. So my message to the suppliers is that we are ready to take risk with them, to be innovative, to be creative and surprising in a beneficial way.
“MyStar is one way in which we did take a risk. We are ready to make more real and emotional investments into travel. And after the years we missed, people deserve this. Travel is a way to share new experiences, and travel retail is a big part of that wider travel experience. But we need to develop more messages about the uniqueness we offer, about how we are different.
“Tallink Silja Line is always open to be a partner in doing this; open for creativity, for innovation and for a little risk-taking.”
*Watch out for further comments from Tallink senior management, plus from key brand partners, in a follow-up story shortly. ✈
