JAPAN REPORT: KANSAI AIRPORT


Kansai International Airport delays tender announcements


Kansai International Airport is delaying announcing the results of tenders for 13 duty free boutiques and shops as the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic means passenger traffic projections are almost impossible to make. David Hayes reports.


understands that this licence has also already been extended until the eventual start of the new concession period. Kansai Airport’s boutique


concession tender attracted strong interest among duty free operators in Japan due to the large growth in Chinese passenger numbers forecasted for the next few years. Of course, this was all before the global pandemic. Last year, Chinese customers


KIX Duty Free North main store at Kansai International Airport. T


he coronavirus-related slump in international passengers has understandably brought


with it great uncertainty over predicted passenger traffic growth at western Japan’s major gateway airport, Kansai International (KIX). In the third quarter of 2019,


Kansai Airport issued tenders for 10 single-brand and three multibrand luxury boutiques in Terminal 1 and Terminal 2. Award announcements were


originally expected around early 2020. However, the onset of the global Covid-19 pandemic has impacted the shop licence award schedule, meaning it is unlikely (at the time of writing in September)


The original licences for all 10 boutiques are due to expire on 30 September this year. The Lotte Duty Free by KRS Licence, which was originally due to expire on 31 March 2020, has been extended.


TRBusiness 30 TRBUSINESS


that new concession awards will be announced before the original licences expire. As a result, KIX is expected


to extend the existing licences until further notice. The 10 brand boutiques tendered in T1 comprise Bottega Venetta, Bulgari, Chloé, Coach, Ermenegildo Zegna, Gucci, Michael Kors, Omega, Rolex and Tiffany & Co. The original licences for all 10


boutiques are due to expire on 30 September this year. The licences for two other already-tendered T1 boutiques are the Hour Passion watches concession that also expires on 30 September and the Lotte Duty Free by KRS licence, which was orginally due to expire on 31 March, 2020. TRBusiness understands that the latter has been extended. The sole T2 travel retail concession


included in the original tender programme is for the terminal’s KIX Duty Free Watches boutique. The original licence for this


concession was due to expire on 30 April 2020. However, TRBusiness


accounted for 74% of duty free sales in the directly-managed KIX Duty Free shops, according to the FY2019 annual report from parent company Kansai Airports. This reflected the high average transaction rate and large share of total purchases by mainland visitors.


Revised traffic forecasts Kansai Airports is owned by a consortium of France’s Vinci Airports and Japan’s Orix financial services company, following privatisation in April 2016. In addition to Kansai International


Airport, Kansai Airports operates Osaka’s


Itami International


Airport and Kobe International Airport. Both serve domestic routes only at present. Located on a man-made island in


Osaka Bay, Kansai Airport is western Japan’s main international gateway and boasts the country’s largest number of direct flights to China. According to the latest published


KIX Traffic Report, Kansai Airport handled an average of 60,277 international passengers daily in the financial year ending 31 March, 2020, (FY2019), along with 18,321 domestic passengers daily. Passenger numbers were expected


to grow this year after Kansai Airport introduced new services to more than 10 cities in China for the


OCTOBER 2020


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