The New Travel Retail Landscape
While global travel volumes continue to climb, the retail industry as a whole faces mounting headwinds:
- £7 billion in additional costs hitting UK retailers in 2025.
- 2.5% lower sales compared to pre-COVID benchmarks.
- 70% of UK retail CFOs expect tougher trading conditions ahead.
Air and rail passenger volumes have returned to pre-COVID levels, and are forecast to keep growing, bucking declining footfall trends in the wider sector.
For travel retail, the opportunity is clear: with more passengers passing through airports and rail hubs, the sector has an edge. But consumer behaviour has shifted:
- Travellers are younger, digital-savvy, and experience-driven.
- They’re more price sensitive and do more research before purchasing.
- Many feel dissatisfied with current assortments in travel stores.
As a result, spend per passenger is dropping:
-15% change in spend per passenger vs pre-COVID levels.
To capture this evolving customer, retailers must adapt quickly.
Growth Through Partnerships and Smarter Operations
Investing in targeted data & AI capabilities allows travel retailers to grow their footprint, evolve their proposition & optimise operations.Winning strategies revolve around three pillars:
- Growth & Partnerships – Expanding footprints locally and globally while crafting stronger, value-driven propositions.
- Efficiency – Protecting margins with smarter, data-enabled operations.
- Customer- centricity – Meeting diverse needs with curated formats, dynamic pricing, and relevant assortments.
Here’s where data and AI deliver the real impact.
High-Value AI Use Cases in Travel Retail
Artefact’s deployed AI solutions are already generating measurable results in travel retail operations
Driving Growth
- Marketing optimisation: At a major UK airport operator, our SEO-driven strategies achieved a 125% YoY traffic increase, with 131% growth in new users and 65% reduction in bounce back rates.
- Tendering efficiency: Lagardère leveraged Artefact’s Lumina GenAI tool to boost tender responses, achieving a 30–40% productivity lift and significant cost savings.
Serving Customers Better
- Range optimisation: Using our assortment optimisation solution, a global retailer improved the range at store level, delivering a 3% revenue increase.
- Pricing intelligence: Our bespoke pricing and promotional solutions generated up to 1.5% incremental margin uplift.
Optimising Operations
- Staff rostering: We used flight data to optimise staff rostering for a leading global travel retail boosting conversion rates and capturing missed sales.
- Forecasting: We deployed advanced store-level forecasting for a multinational retailer, which resulted in reduced food waste by 15%, improved availability, and enhanced customer satisfaction.
The Path Forward
Travel retail is no longer just about footfall – it’s about converting passengers into engaged customers despite tighter wallets. By embedding data and AI across marketing, commercial strategy, and operations, travel retailers can sustain growth, protect margins, and deliver better experiences.
In short: the future of travel retail will be won by those who blend global expansion, operational efficiency, and customer-centric innovation – all powered by pragmatic data-driven solutions.
