NORWAY. Travel Retail Norway (TRN), the joint venture between Gebr. Heinemann and Norse Trade, today unveiled six eye-catchingly redesigned Tax Free Norway and Travel Value shops at Oslo Gardermoen Airport. They cover more than 9,000sq m.

The Moodie Davitt Report has been on location at Norway’s busiest airport to bring you highlights of the impressive new shopping experience ­– which features a strong Sense of Place in terms of both design and product selection – and reaction from key stakeholders.

The redesign project – anchored by a refurbished 3,200sq m tax-free arrivals store which regularly sees more than 10,000 transactions a day – has been carried out as part of TRN’s commitments for the five-year contract extension it was awarded in 2021 (running from January 1 2023 to 31 December 2027). The latest period will extend its tenancy at the airport to 22 consecutive years.

The striking new look of the stores is the result of a partnership between TRN and world-renowned Norwegian architect firm snøhetta, which focused on bringing “more local atmosphere into the shops”, according to TRN.

The redesign work has brought a strong Nordic look to the stores with clear lines and an emphasis on natural materials for in-shop furniture. Walls have been moved to implement a new concept for categories which aims to make it “easier to navigate the shops and inspire people with shopping ideas”, in the words of TRN.

TRN noted that the use of ‘flexible furniture’ makes the fixtures adaptable to all product categories and different concepts. This, the travel retailer said, enables the shops to react quickly to changing customer demands and create new customer experiences whenever needed.

Nordic brands feature strongly across the shops and a wider selection of regional products is now available in the duty free stores including cider from the west of Norway and perfumes & cosmetics brands from Oslo.

Sustainability was a key focus of the TRN redesign project, with recycling waste and resource-saving initiatives prominent. This is underlined by the new store concepts achieving BREEAM certification, a science-based suite of validation and certification systems for the sustainably built environment.

Further, a ‘future-friendly’ section in the stores highlights products that meet specific eco-friendly criteria, with the sustainability impact in these sections enhanced by the use of recycled furniture.

The main duty free arrivals shop features a very strong liquor and perfumes & cosmetics offer. Its accent is on convenience, TRN noted, with the redesign work affording shoppers fast and easy orientation.

The convenience factor is further enhanced by an expanded Click & Collect pick up point close to the entrance of the store. Up to 20% of income is expected to come via pre-orders, picked up via this method, within two years. The figures for Click & Collect are already significantly in advance of the numbers achieved for the service pre-pandemic.

For fast operations and smart logistics, this area is directly connected to the Travel Retail Norway product storage area in the airport and the AutoStore system.

A major highlight of the tax-free arrivals shop is the new ‘Wine Cellar’. Here, travellers can enter the temperature-controlled room and choose from a wide selection of travel-exclusive wines.

In the departures area, there are two main duty free shops and one satellite shop (in the non-Schengen Area).

The refurbished line-up is completed by two more stores in the departures area. They are both Travel Value shops, one in the international zone featuring mainly clothing, sunglasses and accessories and the other in the domestic departures area focusing on perfumes & cosmetics, fashion, accessories and toys.

Speaking at today’s opening event, Gebr. Heinemann Director Sales Nordic Jens Wolf said: “We are delighted with the trust Avinor has placed in us. It is our common belief that the travel retail market here will continue to grow strongly – if the right offer is made to travellers. That is why we as TRN have invested extensively in the shops. What we have created here is retail that is flexible, local, and sustainable.

“Oslo is a very important location for us, and we will do our utmost to provide a spectacular assortment and unforgettable experiences to travellers. Given our strong Nordic footprint, we are establishing the top level of global travel retail in Oslo, as well as in Bergen, Stavanger and Trondheim [where similar refurbishment projects have also been completed].”

Travel Retail Norway Managing Director Tore Hov commented: “The extension of the concession for us means the continuation of our trusting partnership with Avinor, which has now lasted for a solid 18 years. We want to use this extension to make our offer in the stores even more attractive and be as successful as we were in pre-pandemic times.”

Avinor EVP Commercial Joachim Lupnaav Johnsen said: “We are delighted to see the conceptual thinking from the tender process coming alive. TRN is a cornerstone in our commercial portfolio, financing our network of airports.

“We look forward with prosperity to developing the future of travel retail together. Thank you, Gebr. Heinemann and TRN, for your courage during troublesome times and your trust investing at Avinor airports.”

The flagship tax free arrivals store is taking a hit this year, following, as reported, the recent cutting of Norwegian airport tobacco inbound allowances from 200 to 100 cigarettes.

Discussing the impact with The Moodie Davitt Report, Hov said: “It’s obviously going to have a significant impact because everybody is being forced to buy half of the cigarettes that they used to – they were a very popular and important source of revenue in arrivals. It has hit us right across our Norwegian business not just here in Oslo but also in Trondheim, Bergen and Stavanger.

“We are still working out how much it is going to cost us, but I would say it is short of a double-digit percentage [of 2019 sales].”

Wolf commented: “It is really difficult to compensate for that lost tobacco revenue but sales of reduced risk tobacco products are already making up some of the shortfall. We won the latest tender in 2021 and although we knew something like this could happen in the future with tobacco, we didn’t foresee it coming so soon, right at the start of our new contract.”

He added: “It makes the increased revenues we expect to generate from the new look stores even more important and we are well placed to do that, as our partnership with Norse Trade has only strengthened through the pandemic period and beyond. 18 years our partnership has been running and I would say we are now stronger than ever before.”

Asked by The Moodie Davitt Report about the next move for Gebr. Heinemann’s Nordic business, Wolf noted he is set to enter discussions regarding retail for two new airports being built in Greenland. He is also discussing more potential Nordic business in other travel retail locations, and pointed to the prospect of generating added revenues from the burgeoning Nordic cruise and ferry retail sector.

The company also recently expanded with a new distribution centre near Oslo, Wolf revealed. As well as servicing Travel Retail Norway in the four key Norwegian airports he said the logistics hub, known as ‘N-Hub’, is already supplying to other retailers including Airport Retail Group, which holds contracts at a number of smaller airports across Norway, also under contract from Avinor. More on Heinemann logistics including in Norway features in our recent story here.

“N-Hub underlines how important the Nordics countries are for us,” said Wolf. “It’s a blueprint for [Gebr. Heinemann] hub solutions in other parts of Europe. Moreover, N-Hub adds to our goal to become a sustainable company as it already helps us save up to 300,000 transporting kilometres every year.”