The L’OCCITANE Group, whose namesake L’Occitane en Provence brand is renowned for its French nature-inspired sustainable beauty and wellness products and will be celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2026, has been expanding exponentially in international markets since acquiring a majority stake of the blockbuster global phenomenon Sol de Janeiro at the end of 2021.
The fast-growing, award-winning lifestyle Sol de Janeiro skincare and fragrance brand has become a multi-generational cult favorite, adopted by global consumers from millennials to Gen Z. Born of an authentic Brazilian philosophy of celebration and joy, the brand has added a new dimension to the company, particularly within its travel retail business, where the company has been hosting colorful, Rio de Janeiro-inspired beach-themed campaigns at airports throughout the globe.
Travel Markets Insider had an opportunity to meet in Cannes with Antoine Lafourcade, General Manager TR EMEAA at L’Occitane Group, to discuss how the two main brands are driving the company’s travel retail business and how the Group plans to introduce its other promising brands into the channel in the Americas.
“While Sol de Janeiro’s largest market is the U.S., Europe actually leads in travel retail,” explains Lafourcade. “The momentum that we’ve had in Europe has been very strong, mainly coming from the UK, which is a key market. But we see the development of the brand within the U.S. and then Latin America as true opportunities for growth.”
While inspired by a joyous, colorful Brazilian vibe, Lafourcade says that Sol de Janeiro is more of a lifestyle brand than anything else.
“The brand awareness on the local markets in the U.S. has a strong influence on the Latin American market. This is where the travel retail channel becomes a really good opportunity in terms of brand visibility, brand awareness, and accessibility for those consumers that travel to Latin America. This is where we see further growth for the brand.”
The addition of Sol de Janeiro to the traditional French group afforded the company a tremendous opportunity to expand.
“Adding Sol de Janeiro to our portfolio opened some new doors and showed our retailers that we are a group that provides growth in the market. Retailers see the brand as a way to drive new consumers into their stores, through animations, through new products. I think that’s been extremely useful.
“But everything that we are doing around our L’Occitane en Provence brand is also attracting shoppers. It is interesting for us as we balance these two brands, specifically in the Americas. We can target different audiences and work on both of them together with their specificity. Both brands are key drivers for the region, North and Latin America.”
50th Anniversary opportunities
The L’Occitane Group is very excited about the upcoming 50th anniversary of L’Occitane en Provence and sees it as an opportunity to develop a strategy to further elevate the brand and bring in new consumers while retaining the existing customer base.
“50 years is a milestone. The brand has had a lot of experience in 50 years. Obviously, this is an opportunity to promote the brand and I think that it comes at a key moment where we are also looking at how we can bring this to life with our retailers,” say Lafourcade.
“The L’Occitane consumers clearly know about the brand. They are aware that we bring expertise, and joy to those who buy into the brand. How can we use the 50-year anniversary to bring in new consumers? By linking the anniversary to a full strategy of elevation,” he says.
Lafourcade points out that the L’Occitane consumer is generally a different consumer than the Sol de Janeiro follower, although they may be complementary, especially in travel retail.
“The airport population is very diverse. You’ve got different age groups, different profiles, different genders. The idea is how can we bring in an offer that tailors to everyone?”
Elemis and Erborian
Further down the line, the Group has some additional brands that it can add to the mix in the region. Chief among these are the spa-inspired British luxury skincare brand Elemis, known for blending natural ingredients with science-backed formulas to create a wide range of anti-aging and cleansing lines, and Korean-French beauty brand Erborian, which uses potent Korean medicinal herbs in its products to create hybrid skincare/ makeup formulas.
“These brands are really at the beginning of their development in the Americas. We are going to let the domestic markets build awareness about the brands before we start in travel retail. But we’ll see them in due time,” he confirms.
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Building excitement
In the Americas, the clear priorities are L’Occitane en Provence and Sol de Janeiro.
“For L’Occitane, we want to elevate the brand to bring in a new type of consumer without losing the ones that we have,” he says. “I think that we’re on the right track in terms of visibility, experience, and consumer integration. These are key priorities for us.
“Sol de Janeiro is our second biggest priority, because it’s the big brand right now. It continues to grow, and its growth is way beyond the market growth. The potential is still there. This brand allows us to build excitement in the region.”
Lafourcade believes that Sol de Janeiro was able to generate excitement, especially in travel retail, by “distorting” the retail environment.
“The reality is that this industry tends to do the same thing over and over. I think that Sol de Janeiro has really been the key factor in changing things.
“How we continue to do this is really our focus for the future. Ultimately, we have an issue of conversion, but the first issue is penetration. And I think Sol de Janeiro is part of the answer to that: it gets people into the store.”
