What Brands Should Know Before Entering Travel Retail
Yvonne Airey has spent years helping brands navigate one of retail's most commercially distinct channels. On why travel retail works differently from anything else, what buyers are actually looking for and how to prepare before you approach.
If you are a brand thinking about travel retail, the appeal is obvious. Airports, airlines, cruise operators and ferry networks give brands access to millions of international consumers every year. UK airports alone handled more than 300 million passengers in 2025, with Heathrow and Gatwick accounting for over 120 million of those journeys. Add cruise, ferry and airline passengers and you are looking at one of the largest moving consumer audiences available anywhere in retail. Few other environments offer the same combination of global reach, premium positioning and discovery-driven purchasing.
Photo: Yvonne Airey
But what many brands discover is that travel retail works very differently from traditional retail. Success comes down less to opportunity and more to preparation. The brands that move fastest are almost always the ones that understood this earliest.
The biggest mistake brands make
The most common mistake is approaching travel retail before being commercially and operationally ready. This usually means presenting products that perform well in domestic retail but have not been adapted for a travel environment the right gifting formats, the right international distribution requirements, the right pricing structure for a channel with very different margin expectations.
Buyers may genuinely like a brand but still decline to progress if there are gaps in commercial readiness, supply capability or pricing. A no in travel retail is often a not yet rather than a never, with buyers indicating what a brand needs to focus on before the conversation can move to a trial. Understanding this reframes how you should approach those early conversations they are intelligence-gathering exercises as much as they are pitches.
Why brand story matters more than you might expect
Travel retail environments are highly curated. Retailers are not just looking for products that sell they are looking for brands that add interest, differentiation and a strong sense of story for an international traveller audience.
Many purchases in travel retail are discovery-led. Travellers are often looking for something they have not seen before, or something that feels distinctive to a brand story or place of origin. This makes provenance, heritage, sustainability credentials, brand purpose and category innovation particularly powerful in this channel. Brands that can articulate clearly why they exist, not just what they sell, consistently find it easier to create genuine interest with buyers.
Understanding margin expectations
This is where many promising conversations slow down. Brands must account for retailer margin, distributor margin and logistics costs, all built into their pricing from the start. Inflight retailers typically expect either full sale or return for delisted products, or a contribution to clearance. All travel retailers will expect marketing and promotional support as standard.
Without this preparation, pricing structures simply have not been built with the channel in mind and conversations stall. The brands that are ready know their numbers before they walk in.
What well-prepared brands do differently
A prepared brand understands its pricing, supply capability, route to market and travel retail proposition before any buyer conversation begins. An unprepared brand focuses on product and brand story without addressing the operational and commercial elements that confirm to a buyer that a brand is genuinely launch-fit. Buyers will support new brands entering the sector, but they expect brands to arrive ready.
Looking beyond the airport
Airport retail is the most visible part of travel retail, which is why most brands focus there first. But the channel spans inflight retail, cruise retail, ferry retail and catering supply — and some of these can be more accessible entry points, particularly for brands that are operationally ready but still building travel retail credibility.
Inflight retail is the most commonly overlooked. Airlines increasingly treat onboard retail as part of their ancillary revenue strategy, supported by specialist inflight retail partners and growing digital pre-order platforms. This means brands are not just competing for physical shelf space but for a place within a curated onboard offer.
A successful inflight entry typically comes down to practical considerations: products that are easy to understand quickly, packaging that is durable and tamperproof, clear price points, compact formats and reliable supply capability. For food and beverage brands specifically, inflight opens up opportunities through both retail programmes and airline catering partnerships.
What makes inflight particularly valuable is that it allows brands to demonstrate real performance within a travel environment. Strong sales data or proven operational reliability onboard can meaningfully support later conversations with airport retailers. For some brands, inflight is not just another channel. It is the first credible step into the wider travel retail ecosystem.
The operational realities
Packaging durability, shelf life, supply reliability and regulatory compliance within secure aviation supply chains can matter as much as brand appeal. These are non-negotiable requirements and discovering them late is expensive. Building them into your product and operations from the start, rather than retrofitting them once buyer conversations are underway, is the difference between a brand that is ready and one that is not.
Before you pick up the phone
Treat travel retail as a strategic growth channel rather than a listing opportunity. The brands that prepare earliest progress fastest when opportunities arise. If there is one thing worth knowing before you approach a travel retail buyer, it is this: make sure you are commercially and operationally ready before the conversation begins. Everything else follows from there.
