AELIA DUTY FREE PRAGUE
Challenge
Portland was appointed by Lagardère to support them with their tender bid for the 10-year duty free concession at Václav Havel Airport in Prague in 2019. Prague Airport’s ambition is to become an ‘Airport Cit’y and be a great place for people to spend their journey and time so the future retail offer needed to inspire people to come to the airport to enjoy shopping, trading, business, leisure, recreation, and entertainment activities.
One of the key objectives for Portland was to create a commercial experience that delivered both value and a taste of authentic Czech culture. The vision also needed to embed digital innovations across multiple touchpoints on the passenger journey and a highly flexible store design to ensure a shopping experience that was renewed for today but also allowed it to evolve for the future.
Approach
We worked closely with the client and immersed ourselves in all of the project information and tender objectives. We explored the local cultural, consumer and passenger trends and lifestyles of the airport users and the wider audience to understand the context in which they engage with brands and branded experiences.
Our design process is people-centric, so it is underpinned by understanding how passengers will engage with the airport and the commercial offer as well as understanding their future expectations, missions and journeys.
Results
Lagardère was successful after beating 2 rival operators and won the tender concession. As well as operating the core duty free, Lagardére will also manage 24 other retail offers with a total area of 4,372 sqm across both the airport terminals in addition to the 1,489 sqm. Walk through core duty free store in T1.
