In a statement eagerly awaited by the travel retail industry, it was announced on Thursday 4 September that Gebr. Heinemann has been awarded the duty free contract at Sydney International Airport. From 17 February 2015, the family-owned German travel retailer will replace the longstanding Nuance Group as operator of the airport’s retail, in a contract that will run for seven and a half years – a year longer than the term stipulated in the tender’s original RFP.
Heinemann Asia Pacific, the Singapore-based arm of the Gebr. Heinemann group, beat off competitive bids by Nuance and Korean travel retailer Lotte Duty Free to operate a total of five duty free shops in Sydney Airport’s terminal, as well as a landside service. The victory is a monumental landmark in the relatively short history of Heinemann’s independent Asia Pacific division, and is a highly anticipated coup for the company, whose keen interest in the Australian market was demonstrated by the openings of the National Geographic and A Little Something stores at Sydney Airport in the latter part of last year.
“In what is still a quite young career it has been just astonishing, and absolutely amazing, to see what you can achieve when you have incredibly good, smart people around you in a team,” Max Heinemann, CEO, Heinemann Asia Pacific, said. “It is, in business terms, the best experience I have ever had. For sure.”
“This success represents a significant step for our global expansion, and puts us firmly onto the map of the Asia Pacific region,” the excited Heinemann Asia Pacific CEO Max Heinemann told Airport Business. “When we consolidate the recent successes we have experienced in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and Indonesia, being able to add one of the highest level tenders in Asia Pacific at Sydney Airport is outstanding.”
“We have achieved the targets of our business plan. We have arrived where we wanted to arrive,” Max continued. “We have been able to prove that learning quickly, for us, leads to success, and after four and a half years’ physically present in Asia Pacific this is a great success for our group – especially for the team locally in Singapore.” Its growth in Asia Pacific is something on which Heinemann places great emphasis, and the company prides itself on ‘doing business locally’. Developing a keen understanding of the region is a critical part of its strategy – and a factor to which Max largely attributes the success of Heinemann’s bid. “You have to be there – that is one of the reasons why we invested so early on into the Australian market with the two concepts that we had there,” he said. “We got to know the mentality and the culture of not just the passengers but importantly the airport – it just fitted really well together. That gave us the push to say this is somewhere where we can feel at home very soon.”
The nature of the Sydney Airport tender captured the industry’s attention for its complex and inventive criteria, and the win provides Heinemann Asia Pacific with an opportunity to exercise the characteristic originality and enterprise with which it creates unexpectedly original airside experiences. “What surrounded our bid at the tender process was firstly to achieve what the airport expected from every bid, which was a complete rethinking of the offer that it has today – something that fits perfectly with our retail philosophy – and secondly, we wanted to capture the uniqueness and vibrancy of the city of Sydney. You take so many memorable impressions with you, and we don’t want to cut that off once people step into the airport,” Max explained. “There needs to be a ‘reenergising’ of your memories so you remember your Sydney experiences, and take them with you once you leave.” What form this creative strategy will take exactly Max did not disclose, because the key, he explained, is to excite and surprise the customer.
The victory is a monumental landmark in the relatively short history of Heinemann’s independent Asia Pacific division, and is a highly anticipated coup for the company, whose keen interest in the Australian market was demonstrated by the openings of the National Geographic and A Little Something stores at Sydney Airport in the latter part of last year.
For Max, the son of Gebr. Heinemann co-owner Gunnar Heinemann, the win is undoubtedly one of the most significant conquests the Asia Pacific branch has made since he took the helm as CEO at the start of the year, and is an experience he describes as “almost unreal”. “But it’s not just to the success of winning this bid that I refer,” he said. “In what is still a quite young career it has been just astonishing, and absolutely amazing, to see what you can achieve when you have incredibly good, smart people around you in a team. It is, in business terms, the best experience I have ever had. For sure.”
ACI EUROPE has produced a stunning 84-page special report on leading travel retailer and distributor Gebr. Heinemann. It is the first publication of its kind for the 135-year-old family-run business, which has traditionally kept a low public profile.
» View the special report here
