Is Travel Retail Placing Too Much Emphasis on Local Product Lines? By: Steve Hillam, Managing Director Pi Insight.
4 minutes read
Introduction by: Peter Marshall
The Airport Duty Free channel is underpinned by a set of core pillars that work together to drive shopper engagement and conversion. Competitive pricing and compelling promotions remain fundamental, reinforcing perceptions of value and providing a clear incentive to purchase while travelling. Range depth and exclusivity further enhance the proposition, giving shoppers access to international product lines, premium formats and travel-only editions that are not always available at home. Retail theatre brings these elements to life through immersive store design, brand storytelling and experiential touchpoints that elevate the overall shopping experience.
However, another core pillar that has grown, and continues to grow in prominence is the role of local ranges, with an increasing number of locally inspired products now being integrated into the airport store environment.
Based on recent studies, this feature by Steve Hillam asks whether the role of local products should now be looked at more closely by the industry, and what the correct fit is in the world of ‘differentiated familiarity’ that Travel Retail is moving into.
The Role of Local Product Lines
Local products are an important element of the Travel Retail landscape. They bring authenticity, emotional relevance and a strong sense of place into the shopping experience. Travellers are often motivated by memory-making and gifting (ultimately, souvenir purchasing), and locally inspired products allow them to take home a tangible reminder of their journey or share a meaningful story upon their return home.
Local ranges also offer something genuinely distinctive to the location, reinforcing the idea that each Travel Retail store is differentiated from the next and offers something new that cannot necessarily be found elsewhere.
However, from various studies we’ve conducted at Pi Insight, we’ve found that airport travellers are generally more likely to actually browse and buy souvenirs in the destination market, where local products are encountered organically through sightseeing, attractions and everyday shopping, and where authenticity and a sense of place are strongest.
Local products are still of interest to airport shoppers, but more often than not, the local ranges just play a complimentary role to the local items available in the domestic market. For example, travellers may defer souvenir purchases until the airport due to convenience, time pressure during the trip, uncertainty about luggage space, or the desire to make a final, consolidated purchase. Airport retail also captures “missed souvenir” behaviour, where travellers realise late in the journey that they want a memento or gift. But, again, this purchase only happens if the domestic market has missed out in the first place.
And this is illustrated when we turn to look at the key drivers for both Duty Free visiting and purchasing, with entering the store to ‘look for souvenir’ only ranking as the 8th leading visiting driver and purchasing an item due to it ‘making a good souvenir’ not even making it into the top 8 purchase drivers.
Differentiation, but within limits
However, differentiation IS a core pillar of the airport channel and core element that today’s travelling consumer not only expects when they enter an airport store, it’s an element they actively seek out as part of the travel experience.
Travelling internationally puts travellers in a different mindset to everyday shopping, one that is more exploratory, time-bounded and emotionally charged, which heightens the appeal of discovering something they cannot easily find at home. Shoppers look for clear signals that a store offers something special, whether through travel-exclusive products, limited editions, premium formats, tailored gifting solutions or compelling brand storytelling that reflects something different from the domestic marketplace. When differentiation is visible and credible, it validates the decision to browse and reinforces the sense that Travel Retail offers added value beyond price alone.
However, this comes with limits. Shoppers also show a strong preference for well-known, globally recognised brands, as these names provide reassurance around quality, authenticity and value factors that also become especially important when purchasing gifts.
International product lines and globally consistent ranges help reduce perceived risk, particularly in an environment where shoppers may have limited time to browse or compare options. For gifting occasions, familiar brands offer confidence that the recipient will recognise and appreciate the product – even if tastes differ across markets or individual variants.
Differentiated Familiarity
The concept of shoppers wanting differentiation but also wanting reassurance from globally recognised brands or product lines appears, from an initial perspective, contradictory. But this is where the theory of ‘differentiated familiarity’ comes in.
Differentiated familiarity reflects the balance shoppers seek between reassurance and discovery. Travellers are naturally drawn to well-known, internationally recognised brands because they provide confidence in quality, authenticity and value. At the same time, these shoppers expect Travel Retail to offer something different from the domestic market. Differentiated familiarity sits at the intersection of these needs; trusted global brands delivering distinctive propositions that feel special, contextual and unique to the travel environment.
When executed well, this approach allows airport Duty Free stores to satisfy the desire for reassurance while still delivering the sense of novelty and privilege that defines the channel and drives engagement, conversion and occasion-based appeal.
This also illustrates the requirement for joined up thinking and activation across numerous different purchase drivers, rather than focusing on individual drivers in isolation. And if we focus just on reassurance, stores would be filled with the regular product lines and miss out on the differentiation. Conversely, focusing solely on differentiation may cause the guarantees our shoppers also require to be missed, something that is potentially the case with the significant local ranges currently becoming increasingly prominent within many of our airport Duty Free stores.
