Singapore - A series activities of the Tax Free World Association (TFWA) officially started, on Monday (12/5) in Marina Bay Sands Exhibition Singapore. Erik Juul- Mortensen, the President of TFWA opened this event with participation from 872 delegations of duty free and travel retails business players. “If we measure from the global selling value of duty free and travel retails in 2013 reaching USD 60 trillion, Asia Pacific itself reached USD 22.3 trillion,†Erik explained in his opening remarks.
Erik mentioned that the performance of the duty free and travel retails in Asia Pacific is outstanding, since 6 out of 10 airports selling the best travel retails are in Asia. “There is no other region that can match this,†Erik explained.
In this event, Angkasa Pura had the opportunity to deliver a speech along with other special guests, which included Jaya Singh (Asia Pasific Travel Retail Association), Julia Gillard (Former Australia Prime Minister) and Parag Khana (Practitioner and Author). In the opening session, Robert Daniel Waloni, Director of Marketing and Business Development of Angkasa Pura Airports, underlined the great potential that Indonesia has. With USD 890 trillion as its GDP, or around 2.3% of the world economy, Indonesia is among the top 10 largest economies of the world. The source for Indonesia’s economic power is the growing middle class. Robert explained, there were only 74 million middle class citizens in 2012, this year the middle class is growing to around 141 million or around 58.7% from the population.
Robert added that having 148 million passengers last year, Indonesia is the biggest aviation industry market in ASEAN. Angkasa Pura Airports has already succeeded in serving 72 million passengers in 2013. Meanwhile in the non-aero sector, Angkasa Pura Airports has started the travel retail business through commercial tenders in 3 airports which are: I Gusti Ngurah Rai-Bali, Sepinggan-Balikpapan and T2 Juanda-Surabaya. The earnings from non-aero activities this year is expected to increase to 39%. “This will encourage the Angkasa Pura Airports to focus its target to 50% from the non-aero earnings, which we hope can be reached by 2017,†Robert reaffirmed.
TFWA Conference is an important moment for Angkasa Pura Airports to exchange ideas, share knowledge related to travel retail industry and open up the opportunities to meet the potential business partners. After succeeded in coupling with Dufry, DFS, Heinneman, Flemingo and WHSmith, Angkasa Pura is still planning to expand its international partnership networks. “This is our effort to catch up with other airport managements in Asia. We believe that the key factor is through this travel retail and international partnerships,†said Robert in his remarks.
After the opening of TFWA , a work shop on travel retail business in East Asia, Australia-New Zealand, South East Asia and India- South Asia region was conducted. “Indonesia has everything, but we are still left behind,†said Robert. With 200 airports and 34 of them are the international gateways, the earnings for Indonesia from the international departure sector is USD 10.3 trillion. Indonesia is still far behind from Malaysia with USD 22.3 trillion from only 38 airports.
The series of activities of TFWA are still on-going. This event is expected to be the best opportunity to promote the airport expansion projects as well as expand the possibilities to cooperate in travel retail sector for Ahmad Yani-Semarang, Syamsudin Noor-Banjarmasin and the New Yogyakarta International Airport. [Yuristo Ardhi Hanggoro]
