Women in Travel Retail (WiTR) held its latest webinar session titled ‘Blurring the lines between retail and hospitality’. The session featured LiBiLoves (Love it, Buy It) Co-Founders Suzanne Mahoney and Johanne Hedges.
LiBiLoves is an online platform that connects brands with travellers in hotels and cruises via QR Codes, which leads shoppers to a curated ecommerce platform. The bespoke offer targets different travel purchase occasions and can be adapted for hotel, restaurant, bar and cruise guests.
Mahoney and Hedges outlined how brands and retailers can leverage the hospitality and destination shopping opportunity by reaching consumers throughout their trip. The pair also discussed how consumers are rediscovering their love for experiential shopping and physical stores in the post-pandemic world.
They said, “Physical retail space is coming back but in a very different way. Brands are responding with contextual retail, retail therapy, shopper experiences and retail theatre. All these new features work together to benefit physical retail.
“Hotels, cruises and resorts benefit from the holiday shopping mindset and extended dwell time, offering an excellent purchase opportunity for travellers.”
Mahoney has more than 20 years experience working with World Duty Free & Harding Retail and with some of the biggest liquor brands. She also as worked alongside big cruise industry companies such as Virgin Voyages and the Ritz Carlton Yacht collection.
Hedges began her career on the cruise ship floor and moved into the buying department at Harding Retail, eventually becoming head of Commercial Development. She was also pivotal in the launch of Virgin Voyages.
