INDIA. The Asia Pacific Travel Retail Association (APTRA) India Conference is taking place in Delhi this week.

The Moodie Davitt Report Founder & Chairman Martin Moodie, a regular visitor to India over many years, is on location and below presents highlights of the event.

An Ospree takes flight amid some InDelhible memories

This bird is much smaller than an eagle and much smaller than any of the large birds you would have heard of. But it flies faster. It’s an agile bird that flies 5,000 miles and… sees its prey miles away. That sounds a lot like us, right?”

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21 MARCH

And so the Asia Pacific Travel Retail Association (APTRA) India Conference draws to a close with a strong Day 3 programme. But this will not be the last the industry hears of this particular conference as APTRA President Sunil Tuli announced the event would become annual going forward.

Below we pick out just one of the excellent sessions from a well-attended day 3 but will produce a more extensive review in the near future.

The afternoon was notable for a powerful and ebullient presentation from Bengaluru Airport VP Commercial Pravat Paikray. Here are some of the images from his highly refreshing address. The visuals tell part of this fascinating, muti-faceted story. A report that puts them in further context will follow soon.

20 MARCH

Vibrant Gala Dinner

Guests were treated to a compelling combination of rich Indian heritage and ebullient Mexican dancing at the APTRA India Conference Gala Dinner held in partnership with Bacardi.

A riveting and almost etherally beautiful performance of The Royal Darbar by Manjari Chaturvedi (a famed Indian danseuse committed to protecting Indian cultural heritage) highlighted the evening. Historically, a Royal Durbar was a grand ceremonial gathering where important announcements were made by the ruling monarch.

**Bacardi Global Travel Retail Managing Director Leila Stansfield pays tribute to the performance she has just witnessed. She was welcomed on stage by APTRA President Sunil Tuli (left).**

**Bacardi-owned Patrón tequila brought the colour, flavour and spirit of Mexico to proceedings**

Dubai Duty Free tells it like it is

Dubai Duty Free Chief Operating Officer Ramesh Cidambi is always good ‘box office’ at industry conferences and once again he provided his trademark blend of candour, insight and wit during a question and answer session with Duty-Free News International Editor Kapila Ireland.

Indian travellers – and Dubai Duty Free’s acute understanding of their needs and desires – have always been pivotal to the retailer’s fortunes. But the impressive rise in standards of Indian airport retailing over recent years, underpinned by an extensive and impressive arrivals shopping offer in many locations, has presented Dubai Duty Free with an increasingly stiff competitive challenge over recent years, Cidambi admitted.

Below we feature the key visuals from his presentation. Look out for our full report coming soon.

**All charts courtesy of Dubai Duty Free. Click on images to expand.**

Note the worrying slump in cosmetics sales since 2019, driven particularly by the decline in Chinese shoppers and spending. But fashion, bolstered by an enhanced luxury proposition, and fragrances spell more encouraging news.

**The negative liquor result is the key talking point here. Notice again the rising importance of fragrances.**

**Cidambi then turned his attention to the key Indian traveller business. The statistics tell the story of the importance of this demographic.**

**In broad terms, sales share has matched passenger ratios down the years**

**As always though, the real story lies with penetration rates rather than total pax numbers and here the narrative gets interesting**

This chart shows a sharp drop in sales of lower-priced items (under US$82), undoubtedly affected by stiff competition from Indian arrivals shops plus testing local market conditions. The Dubai government scrapped its previous 30 percent municipality tax on local market alcohol sales in January 2023. Higher-end products paint a more encouraging story with Dubai Duty Free’s enhanced focus on luxury clearly paying off.

**Every picture tells a story: The key sub-plots here involve fashion and fragrances (up) and cosmetics and tobacco (down)**

**For Indian travellers the comparison shows less movement, at least in terms of share**

**But in sales terms (2023 v 2019) it is not such good news for cosmetics, tobacco or delicatessen items**

**Early 2024 trading to Indian shoppers shows a big softening in technology sales with confectionery and liquor also declining year-on-year**

Plenty of delegates pulled out their mobile phones to snap this image. Some notable moves (in both directions) here. Courtesy of its late 2021 boutique opening, Louis Vuitton has emerged high in the rankings. Dior likewise has surged up the table. Other big movers are Dewar’s, Cartier, Royal Salute, Rolex and Calvin Klein.

**It’s whisky all the way at Dubai Duty Free with beer and wine (both key to the arrivals business) also holding large shares**

While this chart has to be viewed in the context of 2019 being a record year and 2023 a period of post-COVID recovery, the findings are nevertheless interesting. Note the green numbers for tequila, in particular, and Champagne

Two key talking points here: the all-important India sub-continent business down sharply over 2019 but the Russian business (spurred by an influx of Russian visitors since the Ukraine war started) has soared

**The growing Russian influence can again be seen in the liquor-specific numbers**

**Then and now: Johnnie Walker still strides out in front but look at fellow Diageo brand, Don Julio tequila, up from nowhere in 2019 to number nine four years later.**

**Bacardi Global Travel Retail will be happy to see all the work the company has put behind Dewar’s paying off**

**As Cidambi noted, comparative sales figures only tell part of the story. Price increases, of which there have been many, have played a key role in top line growth.**

Dynamic Delhi Duty Free

The highlight of a long morning session was an outstanding presentation from Delhi Duty Free CEO Ashish Chopra. Here are some of his key visuals. We will bring you a more extensive report on this address and the full event in due course.

**A tale of transformation: Chopra led the audience through the extraordinary evolution of duty free at Indira Gandhi International Airport over recent years**

**“It’s a fantastic time to be proudly Indian,” said APTRA President Sunil Tuli as he opened the conference. “This is India’s time.”**

**The conference was graced by Government of India Director General Tourism Manisha Saxena, shown here being welcomed to the stage by Sunil Tuli**

19 MARCH

Packed Opening Cocktail

After the drama of the Ospree announcement, attention switched to the APTRA Welcome Cocktail Reception in partnership with Diageo.

Earlier in the day an afternoon networking session was held in association with Aperol Spritz.

**Diageo is a powerhouse of the drinks and travel retail sectors in India, a status reflected in its strong support of the APTRA India Conference**

**Martin Moodie with Cochin International Airport Limited Deputy General Manager Sreejith TK**

**Two youthful veterans of the industry, both going stronger than ever: King Power Traveler President Rakhita Jayawardena and Kreol Group CEO Lal Arakulath**

**Martin Moodie with Alpha Kreol India (Cochin Duty Free) Operations Manager Sreenivasan A.S**

**Martin Moodie with (from left) Hardeep Sethin, Diageo; Rakhita Jayawardena; Lal Arakulath; and Neeraj Sharma, Kreol Travel Retail**

DENIZEN Destination Managing Director Estelle Baumann is in Delhi to promote the hugely ambitious brand’s unique collectible destination fine jewellery offer. Click here to read our recent interview with her.

**Global Drinks Limited Founder and Managing Director Harry Kartasis (centre) and Dubai Duty Free Chief Operating Officer Ramesh Cidambi pose for a selfie with Martin Moodie**

**Martin Moodie, Rakhita Jayawardena and Estelle Baumann**

**Martin Moodie and Rakhita Jaywardena close out the opening day in time-honoured style with a nightcap**

An Ospree takes flight

Mumbai Travel Retail Private Limited (MTRPL), the joint venture between Adani Airport Holdings and Flemingo Travel Retail, this evening announced a rebranding of its retail business under the Ospree name, led by the ‘Ospree Duty Free, Shopping Spree’ tag line.

A new brand takes flight: Ospree is revealed by Mumbai Travel Retail in Delhi today

The move was revealed by MTRPL CEO Avishek Bambii Das at a special event hosted by the travel retailer just before the APTRA India Conference Opening Cocktail.

The conference runs from 19-21 March in Delhi. The Moodie Davitt Report Founder & Chairman Martin Moodie is in attendance and will bring you more details soon.

The new brand identity underlines the JV’s heady ambitions to expand in the travel retail space.

**Adani Airport Holdings Ltd CEO – Non Aero Harshad Jain spells out the group’s tremendous growth and heady ambitions in the travel retail sector**

As reported yesterday, Eurotunnel has appointed MTRPL subsidiary Le Marché Duty-Free to manage the duty-free business at Eurotunnel’s French terminal in Coquelles (near Calais).

“This is a very important day for us,” said Adani Airport Holdings CEO – Non Aero Harshad Jain as he welcomed guests to the evening.

Jain began by setting the Adani Group’s extraordinary recent emergence as an airports powerhouse in context.

“As part of the Adani Group, Adani Airports is a very large and very strategic investment for us,” he said. “As a company, we got into this business only about two and a half years back, when in September 2021, we bought out Mumbai Airport, and then we took over many Airport Authority of India airports.

“As we speak, today, we are among the largest airport companies in the country,” he observed, noting the company holds an approximate 30% share of domestic passenger numbers; more than 40% of international traffic and 45-50% of cargo traffic.

“Within our airports business, non-aero is a very critical pillar… the entire revenue stream of the business is actually predicated on the non-aero revenues. And within the various lines of businesses that we run from car parking to lounges to retail, advertising and other lines… the duty-free business is amongst the most strategic and most critical businesses in our entire portfolio.”

Jain said the group had seen a “tremendous amount of momentum” since directly entering the duty-free business in September 2021 when it struck a Share Subscription Agreement with Flemingo Travel Retail Private Limited and MTRPL, giving it a controlling 74% equity share capital of MTRPL.

“This growth is predicated fundamentally on two or three very fundamental shifts which are happening. Number one, there is a massive tailwind as far as the Indian economy is concerned.

“We are almost now a US$3 trillion economy. In the last five years, India has moved from a number nine economy to a number four economy currently, and at the rate at which we are going by 2030… it could be somewhere amongst the top two or three economies.

“This has a direct implication on travel. The moment the Indian economy does well it has a direct impact on travel. The tailwinds that we are seeing behind travel are absolutely unprecedented.

“In the next three to four years, India will have over 700 million people who are going to be travelling. That means out of our 1.4 billion population, 50% of the people… will be traveling. And this has a direct impact on what we see in terms of consumption.”

As a result, the group’s duty-free business has seen “massive growth” in terms of all key KPIs, Jain said. “We talk about goodness of growth – that is our company philosophy,” he continued. “And we’ve seen that momentum.”

Jain celebrated the company’s recent success – announced earlier this week – in winning the concession to manage the duty-free business at Eurotunnel’s French terminal in Coquelles (near Calais).

He said such successes and the company’s overall momentum were down to a combination of strong leadership; the group’s “complete commitment” to the airport and duty-free sectors; and the great partnerships the group enjoys with brands.

Avishek Bambii Das announces the rebranding and celebrates the Eurotunnel contract award. “We have finally been able to deliver on our ambition of going outside India, and planting a flag right in Europe.”

Next came the big moment as Mumbai Travel Retail Private Limited CEO Avishek Bambii Das took to the stage to announce the company’s new identity and branding. He began by thanking brand partners and echoing Jain’s delight at “planting a flag right in Europe” with the Eurotunnel contract.

“We have always been a company that punches way above our weight… and we intend to continue that journey,” he said. “We will need your support to deliver on our ambition of planting a flag in almost every country overseas.”

Building up to the brand reveal, Das explained the inspiration behind the name. “Let me tell you a story,” he began. “It is the story of a bird – a bird that fascinated me.

“We are a passionate bunch and we work pretty late into the night… and one night I came across this interesting story about a bird that flies 5,000 miles to come to India and then goes back during migration. 5,000 miles. That’s, say, from Mumbai to London, or Mumbai to Perth – countries that we want to get into.

“That bird is much smaller than an eagle and much smaller than any of the large birds that you would have heard of. But it flies faster than them. It’s an agile bird that flies faster than the biggies, goes 5,000 miles and guess what? It’s among the birds that has the best long-term vision – it sees its prey miles away.

An Osprey seizes its prey: The new branding is a play on the name of the bird, renowned in India, famed for its endurance, vision and speed {Photo: Moodie Davitt Shutterstock Official Account; Photographer: Mark Medcalf}

“That sounds a lot like us, right? We fly faster than our competition. We are more aggressive than our competition – in a good way. And we have a long-term vision based on microscopic details that we focus on daily. And today, our new ambition starts with the identity inspired by this bird [the Osprey -Ed].”

The video reveal of the Ospree (a play on Osprey) branding was complemented by a congratulatory video featuring Indian acting and film-producing superstar Shah Rukh Khan – also the face of limited-edition luxury streetwear brand. ✈