King Power secures Thai airport monopoly

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King Power International Group will take over rival Airport Duty Free's Thai airport contracts from January 1, 2002, TRW can confirm. This will give King Power a virtual monopoly on Thailand's $150m airport duty-free industry.

King Power has signed a contract with the Airports Authority of Thailand (AAT) to take over a further 1,780sq m (19,153sq ft) of retail space at Bangkok, Phuket, Chiang Mai and Hat Yai international airports. Airport Duty Free was last year served notice by the AAT that its contracts would not be renewed.

At Bangkok, King Power will add four new locations in departures, two in arrivals and one transit shop. At Phuket, it will gain one departures and one arrivals store, plus one extra departures store at Hat Yai and Chiang Mai.

A spokesperson for King Power said: "We will immediately begin the project planning for the new operations and will be identifying potential retail designers to tender for the work throughout all the airports in the coming weeks. We will look for companies that can provide an integrated, state of the art, retail design concept and which will work with King Power to optimise the space available."

Full details appear in Duty-Free News International March 1, out this week.