NORWAY. A decision on which company will run the duty free retail space at Norway’s major airports, currently out to tender, will be reached in the next fortnight.
An original short list of five retailers has been narrowed down to three – SAS Trading, Aelia and Travel Retail Norway (a 50:50 joint venture between Gebr Heinemann and local company Esthetíque). The Nuance Group and Alpha Retail were the others originally in the running from an earlier field of 12.
The winning bidder will run retail from 1 January 2005 until 31 December 2011 at Oslo, Stavanger, Bergen, Trondheim and Kristiansand airports.
The contract has been hotly-contested largely due to Norway’s high domestic duties and non-EU status, which collectively makes it one of Europe’s most valuable duty free concessions.
