Editor’s note: For the past two decades, Société Hamila pour le Commerce et l’Industrie (Hamila) has built a strong presence in the Tunisian duty free business, operating a diplomatic store, ferry and port shops, ships chandling and inflight sales. But after celebrating its 20th year in 2003, it is looking to neighbouring North African countries, notably Algeria, Morocco and Libya, for growth.
November’s news that Société Hamila pour le Commerce et l’Industrie had won the inflight duty free concession onboard Tunisair put a perfect seal on a memorable year for the Tunisian retailer.
The five year agreement, which starts next month, is a major boost to Hamila, which already enjoys a powerful portfolio of duty free operations in Tunisia, including operating a diplomatic store, ferry and port shops, ships chandling and inflight sales. The family-owned company also recently signed a five-year contract, commencing November 2003, to manage Tunisian airline Nouvelair’s inflight sales (see sidebar).
General director Tarek Hamila is understandably delighted with the Tunisair success. “It’s excellent news,” he says. “I’m very, very motivated by this. We now have both Nouvelair and Tunisair and our airline business is growing very well.
“In 2004 our percentage of sales growth from airlines will be higher than our other areas, such as airports and diplomatic and ships.”
Hamila is also implementing a US$0.5 million refurbishment of its downtown diplomatic store. But Tarek Hamila believes the Tunisian market is close to maturity, hence the need to spotlight other markets.
“We are really focusing on international development,” he says. “The Tunisian market has reached maturity, with Weitnauer (now DUFRY) now handling the airports. So we are looking at the whole region as it opens up.
“In Tunisia, we have our diplomatic shop, ships chandling, port shops and onboard shops [cross-Mediterranean ferries running between Tunis and Marseille in the South of France and Genoa in southern Italy] and now we have the inflight contract on Nouvelair.”
The company’s diplomatic shop refurbishment is a key project due for completion soon. “We’re finalising the plans and getting authorisation from Customs and we’ll complete it in 2004,” says Hamila.
Looking back over his company’s history, Hamila says development has been boosted by the country’s political and economic stability of recent times. “Of course, we have been influenced by negative developments around the world [in recent times] but only to a minimum degree. The recovery [post Iraq war and SARS] has been quite good. We’re seeing very satisfying numbers; the future has a lot of potential and the figures for 2004 look promising.”
He continues: “I have really finished my job in Tunisia so I’m going to be concentrating on Morocco and Algeria, especially. That’s where the development is. Duty free is not very advanced there. In Morocco, for example, there is a small port shop in Tangiers with two million passengers going through but their sales are lower than what I do with 400,000 passengers in Tunisia. Plus there is a lot of potential on the boats. Algeria is even better in development terms.”
With DUFRY (Weitnauer) having exited the Algerian business, Hamila sees good potential for airport development as well as other types of stores.
In the meantime, he is delighted at progress in Tunisia, which has one of the most advanced tourism infrastructures in North Africa. “Tourism can only grow,” says Tarek. “Our country invests heavily in tourism in general. We have a lot of hotels, two charter airline companies and a very stable economy.”
Critically, Tunisia is also viewed as safe. “We have a really promising future tourism-wise with beautiful beaches and weather.”
Hamila has supported MEDFA from its early days, becoming a board member and embracing the association’s aims of fostering retail development in the Middle East and, he hopes, North Africa. Does he see MEDFA extending into North Africa? “That’s my objective,” he replies, “I need to get all the operators in North Africa to join MEDFA. I also want MEDFA to come to Tunisia or Morocco or Egypt and just move around the region.”
Taking flight on Nouvelair
Hamila’s five-year contract to operate inflight duty free sales onboard Nouvelair is a strong gain for the retailer as the airline is showing rapid growth.
Nouvelair, the first Tunisian charter airline company, was founded in October 1989 under the name of Air Libetré Tunisie. It is a subsidiary of the leading Tunisian travel group, Tunisian Travel Service. Its fleet mainly comprises Airbus A-320s, which are gradually replacing the old MD 83s.
Nouvelair now has routes to around 90 European airports. Beside its charter activities, the airline has started developing and expanding scheduled flights in response to increasing demand. For example, it is introduced a new weekly scheduled flight service between London Gatwick and Monastir International Habib Bourguiba airports from February 2004. Monastir Airport is conveniently located for the tourist resorts of Skanes, Mahdia, Sousse, Port El Kantaoui, Hammamet and even Tunis.
There is a real opportunity to develop inflight sales, says director Tarek Hamila. “It’s a charter airline with one million passenger passengers which is developing very fast,” he enthuses. “There is huge development potential. Our aim is to develop the sales per passenger.”
2002 inflight duty free sales reached around TND 3.5 million (US$2.8 million) but Hamila is confident that his company can grow that amount significantly.
