Nuance and Copenhagen Airports join forces at Kastrup

Gavin Lipsith

Print Article E-Mail Article E-Mail Author

Landlord and retailer have formed joint working groups and a steering committee to oversee several aspects of retail at Copenhagen Kastrup airport, Nuance, has revealed

The Nuance Group and Copenhagen Airports have devised a joint strategy to improve retail performance at Copenhagen Kastrup airport. Following last week's news that Copenhagen Airports is to take a more active role in retail at Kastrup, Nuance announced today that retailer and landlord have formed joint working groups and a steering committee to tackle several tasks in the coming months.

The working groups will focus on improving operations in many key areas, including logistics, training and staff motivation, shop layout and coordinated marketing in the stores, the airport and beyond. Nuance hailed the scheme as a potentially trend-setting development in the way in which airports and retailer cooperate. It said the new structure would lead to a win-win situation for all parties involved.

As revealed on RavenFox.com last week (May 25), Copenhagen Airports vice-president of commercial affairs Henrik Busch told delegates to Nordic Travel Retail Seminar that the landlord was determined to take a much more hands-on role in commercial affairs at Kastrup. He said that the airport authority now had its own staff in Nuance's Copenhagen shops to monitor operations.

"Airports should not be landlords but sparring partners," he argued. "We are getting involved in every day of our retailer's operations and we will kick them out if they don't perform because we only have a limited amount of space in which to generate turnover."

Earlier in the year Nuance Europe CEO Carlo Bernasconi told delegates to the Global Travel Retail Summit that the company was committed to a revamp of stores at Kastrup following disappointing duty-free and travel-retail sales in recent years. "We are going to change nearly all of our shops there," he said. "I hope we'll enjoy success and show the industry there is another way of doing business."

Nuance, which holds a five-year contract at Copenhagen until March 1 2007, said it was looking forward to unveiling a new duty-free store concept at Kastrup this summer.