DFNI Frontier
By Kapila Ireland
The inviting new stores feature a mix of international brands and a local sense of place.
Moroccan Airport operator Office National des Aéroports (ONDA) and Dufry yesterday (23 October) held the inauguration of duty free operations at Casablanca Mohammed V International Airport and Marrakesh Menara Airport.
ONDA and Dufry celebrated their partnership of 17 years since Dufry opened its first duty free shop in Morocco at Marrakesh Airport in 2002. The parties commemorated the new duty free stores opened as part of a state-of-the-art transformation and expansion of both airports in recent years. Casablanca and Marrakesh airports welcomed close to 10 million and over 5 million passengers respectively in 2018*.
Dufry now operates 26 stores at eight airports across Morocco including nine stores at Morocco’s largest airport in Casablanca and four at Marrakesh Airport, under the Casablanca Duty Free and Marrakesh Duty Free banners respectively. Dufry also operates four Hudson stores across the two locations.
Marrakech Duty Free Main Departures Store
In both airports, the main duty-free store is designed as walkthrough concept located straight after security with the passenger flow leading travellers through Dufry’s retail offer, before continuing through the airside terminal.
The store design, by UK firm The Design Solution, evokes a local sense of place of Morocco with the main departures stores designed to be light and spacious, with a Moroccan trellis pattern weaving through the shops.
Nick Taylor, Director at The Design Solution, outlines the inspirations and strategies behind the retail designs: “At both Marrakech Menara and Casablanca Mohammed V International, the combination of ONDA and Dufry have shown their commitment to creating a distinct and resonant sense of place that shares an authentic spirit of Morocco.
“The design at Marrakech in particular blends ancient and modern to reflect the rich heritage and modern vibrancy of this great city. The careful combination of design elements with a range of proven drivers of footfall includes a walkthrough approach to entice passengers and draw them into discovering depth of the retail offer, which is built around a series of ‘shopping worlds’ tailored to specific categories and the needs of the passenger profile at the airport. Footfall is particularly supported by an ‘infinity loop’ circulation that will encourage passenger flows around both the centrally-positioned seating and beauty islands and back towards the speciality retail and restaurants,” explained Taylor.
He continued: “The design adopts a number of classic themes from the city’s powerful cultural heritage, including the arabesque patterns, a rich colour palette, beautiful woodwork and the amazing intricacy of the tile mosaics. All of which is balanced by the traditional use of simple white.”
The design of the main walkthroughs feature a Moroccan trellis pattern
The traditional design is complemented with digital aspects of the customer journey such as Dufry’s Reserve & Collect service and RED by Dufry loyalty programme. Store staff equipped with sales tablets can provide shoppers with up-to-date and detailed information of the products instore.
Reserve and Collect in Casablanca
Across its stores, the retailer offers passengers a range of renowned international brands across core categories (perfume and cosmetics, liquor, confectionery and tobacco) and local accessories, fashion and beauty products. Stores in both airports also have tasting stations dedicated to showcasing the confectionery products available.
Casablanca Duty Free hosts the first multibrand corner dedicated to fashion brands at the airport, while in Marrakesh, as well as fashion spaces within the main duty-free store, Dufry operates standalone fashion spaces under its specialist store concepts; Atelier, Attitude, Travel Star, Timebox and Suncatcher, each offering a mix of local and international brands.
Speciality store concepts feature in Marrakesh
Many new brands have been introduced; in the P&C category this includes L’Occitane, Michael Kors, Nuxe, Rituals, Zadig&Voltaire, Zegna and Moroccan beauty brands Jerraflore and marocMaroc, as well as a luxury fragrance corner in Marrakesh, “Haute Parfumerie”. In fashion and accessories, passengers can now find Armani, Bric’s, Calvin Klein, Desigual, Eden Park, Montblanc, Pinko, Samsonite, Superdry, Tommy Hilfiger, Tumi and Victoria’s Secret.
Dufry’s Hudson stores provide impulse travel convenience, leisure and snacking goods to passengers.
Hudson Store Casablanca T1
Dufry Division CEO Southern Europe & Africa Pedro Castro said: “We wanted the Marrakesh Duty Free and Casablanca Duty Free spaces to be inviting to passengers and an enjoyable part of their airport experience. We worked closely with ONDA to create seamless walkthrough concept stores, located straight after security.
“Both of the main departures stores are designed to be light, spacious and evocative of Morocco. At Dufry we are delighted with these stores and the outcome of our partnership with ONDA. I would like to personally thank ONDA management for the trust they have placed in Dufry and the time and dedication spent with us to create what we believe is a fantastic commercial offer for passengers”.
ONDA Director of the Airport Operations Division M. Hamid Mokadem added: “This ceremony is an opportunity to remember our successful partnership with Dufry. We are delighted with the success of this win-win partnership.
“In these two airports, the two spaces were set up following extremely demanding international calls for tender to choose a Duty Free operator who offers the best concept for the development and operation of walkthrough stores. The proposed concepts were in harmony with our vision of modernising these covetable spaces that are the airports”.
*Official ONDA figures
