CHINA: CHINA DUTY FREE GROUP (CDFG)
CDFG extols China’s ‘world champion’ tourist trade as big 2018 beckons
China Duty Free Group cemented its global travel retail credentials in a standout 2017 with a sweep of concession gains, which included the prestigious Hong Kong liquor & tobacco contract in partnership with Lagardère Travel Retail. Luke Barras-Hill reports.
“Overall, 2017 was a good year; as the representative of China’s duty free industry we saw more Chinese tourists maintain strong growth momentum and purchasing power, therefore we are confident in 2018,” a confident Charles Chen, CEO of CDFG commented to TRBusiness
in an
interview
for the Global Industry Survey earlier this year. Referring to insight from a UN
Above: Duty Zero by CDF at Hong Kong International Airport.
A TRBusiness
s TRBusiness has reported on frequent occasions, 2017 can be viewed as an
unmitigated success for China’s leading travel retailer China Duty
Chen revealed to TRBusiness that the company was targeting DF&TR sales of approximately RMB15bn ($2.2bn) in full-year 2017.
Free Group (CDFG). It is already well-established that
parent company China International Travel Service Corporation’s (CITS) 2016 merger with China National Travel Service Group (CNTS) levers huge expertise in the tourism markets. This has resultantly billowed the
flames of CDFG’s meteoric rise in China and – increasingly – on the global DF&TR stage.
Hainan breaks 1m visitors
CDFG has a monolith off-shore duty free presence at its Sanya International Duty Free Shopping Complex – the largest off-island downtown duty free shop in mainland China – and Haitang Bay International Shopping Complex. As reported by
TRBusiness.com earlier
this year, overseas inbound tourism to China’s Hainan Province grew by 50.1% to surpass one million in 2017, according to the state-run Hainan Provincial Tourism Development Commission. Tallying with that strong growth
was a +21% rise in tourism revenues to RMB81.19bn ($12.8bn), which in turn outpaced growth in total tourist numbers (+12%) to reach 67.5m year-on-year. Foreign exchange income also rose by
a staggering 95% year-on-year to total $681m, underpinning the huge visitor riches available to the likes of CDFG.
80 TRBUSINESS
Numbers are likely to be bolstered further by the increasing number of direct international flights serving the island, with the goal to create an aviation hub serving 100 overseas carriers by 2020. The Chinese Ministry of Finance’s
decision two years ago to double special duty free allowances to RMB16,000 ($2,432), which applies to duty free operations in capital Haikou, and Sanya, was a shrewd one. State-run media reported at the time
these figures were released in January that Hainan’s provincial finance bureau estimated sales for offshore duty free shops to total around RMB30.59bn ($4.7bn) for the province’s duty free programme since its introduction in 2011. In documents seen by TRBusiness, the
MAY 2018
Hainan Provincial Tourism Development Commission outlined plans to raise numbers this year through a combination of development initiatives, which include publicising visa-free policies and multi- modal forms of transportation. Six key targets include further
relaxations on restrictions of duty free sales, increasing the current duty free ceiling, and plans to unify duty free shopping policies for island tourists. Watch this space…
world economic report, Chen was keen to align a +3% forecast rise in global economic growth this year with potential tourism development. This has been fuelled irrevocably by China’s ‘world champion’ status in terms of overseas tourist trips over the last four years, he pointed out. According to the most recent Top
10 International Operators report in October, TRBusiness estimated total CDFG sales at approximately $1.45bn in 2016 [this was based on
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156 |
Page 157 |
Page 158 |
Page 159 |
Page 160 |
Page 161 |
Page 162 |
Page 163 |
Page 164
