Portland assisted Aelia LS travel retail as part of its successful tender submission for the core duty free concessions at Terminals 1 and 2 at Nice Airport (Aéroports de la Côte d’Azur) which were awarded last month.
A key element of the tender vision was to ensure that Nice Airport would provide the most surprising customer experience of any European airport and also convey a distinct spirit of place that would reflect Nice Airport’s unique geographical setting.
Aelia’s newly launched ‘next generation’ duty free store design has been used as the core retail platform for the new store. Aelia Duty Free ‘next generation’ stores deliver customer journeys that are strongly focused on “The Art of the Gift” and this gifting experience is a key feature of the design for Nice Airport. The Nice Airport Duty Free design is also aligned with the ‘next generation’ store’s “Here and Nowhere Else” ethos by layering in experiences and ambiances that celebrate the local Côte d’Azur story.
Lewis Allen, Director of Environments and who led the project, comments: “given the passenger profile of Nice, we wanted to create a shopping experience that would span a wide variety of shopper moods and missions, from luxury to convenience. Additionally, we needed to design a shopping experience that is authentic to the unique spirit and personality of the Côte d’Azur. We distilled this down to an experience that delivers ‘playful new luxury ’ at every touch point. This vision enabled us to design shopping experiences that immerse customers in the Côte d’Azur’s seductively playful translation of the classic luxury offer that we see in airports everywhere today”
Lewis Allen continues: “we created 10 ‘highlight experiences’, including a vibrant event space, a premium fragrances area, a beauty spa bar, an emerging trends gallery and a Riviera tasting bar.
The concept also embeds digital innovations one example being the programmable interactive LED chandelier in the champagne category.
As well as creating the retail concepts and brand communications Portland also designed the duty free tender submission document and packaging. Using the same brand vision and ‘look and feel’ for the stores, the consultancy created two tender submission documents that reflected and epitomised the look and feel of the stores as well as exuding a very clear Côte d’Azur spirit of playful new luxury.
Ibrahim Ibrahim, MD of Portland comments: “ this was an important win due to the high profile nature of Nice Airport and we are delighted that design continues to play a strategically significant role in tenders”.
This is the second successful tender bid that Portland has assisted with. Last year the consultancy was LS travel retail’s design partner for the Auckland Airport duty free tender where it won one of the two concessions.
The consultancy is currently working with LS travel retail on a number of other airport tenders and opportunities.
