INTERNATIONAL. Travel retail’s vocabulary has changed drastically over the past ten years, according to a key word analysis of all stories on The Moodie Davitt Report.com over the past year and ten years respectively.
The Moodie Davitt Report took 20 key words or terms that proved popular in 2019 and compared their usage to 2009. The findings, seen in the chart below, were intriguing and underline how rapidly travel retail has evolved as consumer engagement, digitisation, Corporate Social Responsibility and China have soared in importance to the sector.
“It’s fascinating to consider that a decade ago, Chinese duty free price comparison app Jessica’s Secret had not been heard of, nor had daigou, KOLs, nor even Instagram (launched in October 2010) and WeChat (January 2011),” said The Moodie Davitt Report Founder & Chairman Martin Moodie. “Yet today all are integral elements of the industry landscape and its vocabulary.
“Equally noteworthy, we think, is the emergence of terms such as curated, experiential, immersive and personalisation, underlining our strong belief that the future of travel retail lies in the optimal fusion between digital and human services and engagement.”
The analysis also highlighted growing environmental awareness and a rising commitment to Corporate Social Responsibility. Other key words such as plastic, provenance and heritage now regularly appear in articles, whereas they rarely showed up a decade earlier.
“We’re seeing the emergence of hybrid words such as ‘phygital’ and we suspect there will be more as travel retail continues to evolve as a diverse omnichannel – itself a term used in 86 stories last year and none in 2009 (the term was introduced globally in 2010),” Moodie said.
The snapshot survey, produced for The Moodie Davitt Report’s final eZine of the last decade, will be followed up with a more detailed study this year.
