Following two years of successful business at Dubai Duty Free, the Arabian perfume group Arabian Oud, is launching a programme to increase its presence in all the major international airports of the world.

Exhibiting at the Middle East Exclusive Exhibition in Dubai last week, Arabian Oud Director of International Franchsing, Toni Abi Rashed, said that the group had been sitting down with a lot of the global duty free retailers to discuss the opportunities.

“Our first experience in duty free with Dubai Duty Free was more than excellent and this gave us the encouragement for the travel retail market,” said Abi Rashed. “But our sales results at Abu Dhabi Duty Free were much less successful, and with this we came to the conclusion that the smaller airports like Qatar and Bahrain are, for now, too small for us.”

He clarified that duty free is being perceived at the group as a high-potential, fast-moving market that attracts a different consumer group to the domestic market.

Arabian Oud is a US$2 billion revenue organisation in 2007. It is arguably the world’s largest single brand perfume retailer with 4,700 sales staff employed directly by the group and a total of 650 Arabian Oud boutiques, with 40 in Dubai, 15 in Kuwait, seven in Abu Dhabi and 450 in Saudi Arabia, among others. The company has recently paid over US$5 million key money to open a second store in Paris, in the Champs Elysees.

“The question for us is ‘what will travel retail add to this’?” said Abi Rashed. “In many cities of the region, the customers already buy [Arabian Oud products] downtown before they land. We are retailers more than distributors, although we control the entire value chain, with our own farms and raw materials in Asia, up to the actual sale to the customer.”

But with such successful sales at Dubai Duty Free, equivalent to one year of sales in a downtown boutique sold in just one or two days in the airport, the company is now moving ahead with a plan to target Arabian Oud stores in all the major airports of the world such as Paris, Milan, London, Kuala Lumpur and New York.

“It is worth the effort and this is our strategy,” said Abi Rashed, adding that the company was encouraged by the broad appeal shown in the Dubai Duty Free sales breakdown, equivalent to 20% of sales to local Arabs and 80% to Europeans, Asians and non-Gulf Arabs.

Arabian Oud is also expanding its brand internationally in the domestic market, tying up for example with Parfumerie Douglas for distribution and stores in the Russian market. Duty free exposure is being seen as a key component in this international expansion.
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