Airport World Issue 1 2013 | Page 16

EVENT NEWS: THE TRINITY FORUM

The real deal

The conference season started early this year with The Trinity Forum held in Abu Dhabi at the end of January. Joe Bates reviews some of the highlights.

The Trinity Forum – where airports, retailers and brands get together to discuss the challenges and opportunities facing the industry – rarely disappoints, and this year’ s event in Abu Dhabi was no exception.

Indeed, with a host of top drawer speakers, announcements, call for a new retail education programme and frustrations from some retailers that concession contracts are still too heavily weighted in favour of airport operators, it was almost compulsive viewing for the 300 delegates in attendance.
Hosted by Abu Dhabi Airports Company( ADAC) at the Yas Viceroy Hotel and International Media Centre next to the Yas Marina Circuit, the theme for this year’ s event was‘ Thought Leadership in Travel Retail’.
In his opening address, ADAC’ s chief commercial officer, Mohammed Al Bulooki, talked about the phenomenal growth of Abu Dhabi International Airport( AUH), which has experienced a 64 % rise in passengers and a 90 % rise in turnover since 2009 as it has grown from a gateway handling 9.7 million passengers annually to a mid-size hub accommodating 24mppa.
He also outlined his company’ s development plans for the new 50 metre high Midfield Terminal Building( MTB) and reflected on the continued growth of the travel retail industry, predicting that ADAC’ s concessions income will almost double to over $ 400 million by 2017 when the new terminal opens.
Al Bulooki enthused:“ The Midfield Terminal project is one of the largest aviation infrastructure projects in the world and will facilitate the growth of the capital of the UAE and its national carrier, Etihad Airways.
“ This industry has proven long ago to be a strong growing business. In 2011, the worldwide duty free business reached $ 46 billion in revenue, and the anticipated growth rate for 2012 was 5 % to 10 %. With ADAC plans for the MTB being realised, hosting this Forum is a key step towards the delivery of a state of the art 700,000sqm terminal that will host the world’ s best retail offer in 2017.”
Abu Dhabi Duty Free retail accounted for a record $ 220 million(+ 24 %) of the industry’ s global sales in 2012, its performance being boosted by AUH’ s near 20 % rise in passenger numbers.
Al Bulooki, who revealed that concession tenders for the new terminal are expected to be issued in Q1 2014, said Abu Dhabi’ s strong performance was the result of an increase in both the passenger spend and average transaction value during 2012.
ACI director general, Angela Gittens, reflected on the importance of non-aeronautical revenues to airports, revealing that they were now“ a vital component in the economics of airports”.
“ Development of commercial revenues has been highly dependent on two key factors,” said Gittens.“ First, the evolution of the airport sector from a public utility to a commercialised, and in some cases privatised industry, has given airports greater freedom, expertise and motivation to exploit the commercial opportunities.
16 AIRPORT WORLD / FEBRUARY-MARCH 2013