One on One with Glen Morgan, General Manager, ARI North America
Even with U.S./Canada political tensions negatively impacting travel from its most important passenger, Glen Morgan, General Manager, ARI North America (ARINA), tells TMI that it has been a busy and exciting time for growth across its Canadian business, as it opens new stores, refurbishes existing shops, and doubles down on local Canadian products.
“Canada, in particular Montréal, recovered well post-Covid and this was mainly down to our ability to pivot as a business. We drew our last pre-pandemic comparisons in 2023, and thankfully our PAX and PAS have continued to grow year on year,” says Morgan.
“Our on-going growth and continued investment in our stores here is testament to the performance of the business.
“While the passenger demographic has changed – of course, with a noticeable impact on U.S. passenger travel – I’m glad to say that our overall PAX are up this year and importantly, our PAS has been strong. European travel has remained positive, and we have seen significant growth in passenger traffic with new routes to North African destinations, particularly at Montréal-Trudeau International Airport (YUL).”
Morgan says ARINA’s long history in Canada has helped weather the storm. The company has been working in the market for 27 years.
Understanding and adaptability
“We have been in the market a long time and believe that the two of the most important things are understanding the passenger and remaining agile. Demographics change constantly and change quickly – it’s our ability to adapt and pivot in a fast-changing world that dictates the success of our business,” he says.
ARINA’s reaction to the rise and fall of the Chinese passenger to Canada is one example where his company quickly adapted, says Morgan.
“During our time in the region, we have experienced the growth of this demographic and then the overnight decimation of travel when Covid hit. This passenger demographic has not fully recovered to pre-pandemic levels, and it may be a very long time before we see that,” he says.
“Thankfully, our business is not reliant on one particular passenger demographic. Instead, we focus on understanding several of our key passenger demographics across each of our locations, and identifying the best opportunities to meet these diverse passenger needs.”
ARI recently developed a new in-depth and intuitive customer segmentation model as part of a “Future Customer Initiative” project, which allows it to understand key passenger demographics per location.
“Coupled with this, we have identified a number of ‘opportunity spaces’ that means we can best tailor our offering to suit particular passenger needs now and into the future. This agility, an ability to react quickly, and a willingness to learn and understand our passengers better than anyone define ARI. It’s this thinking that will keep us successful.”
Local Canadian products
Throughout its stores in Canada, ARINA mixes globally known brands with local products, which helps develop a sense of place, says Morgan.
“Canada is quite a unique region. It’s incredibly diverse and multicultural; it’s hyper local and authentic, but in a global cosmopolitan setting. This is reflected in our operations – from product assortment to our multicultural and multilingual teams,” he says.
“Canadians have always taken great pride in their local produce and are somewhat ‘patriotic’ in terms of their buying habits, so we have always put an important emphasis on local brands and products as part of our offering. It’s little wonder – Canada is home to many unique and superb quality products that appeal to both locals traveling and inbound tourists.”
Maple whisky is ARINA’s top selling whisky – and this was the case pre-tariffs.
“We recently introduced a new indigenous brand, Atikuss whose range of luxury handcrafted accessories have performed even better than expected. It opens us up to explore new ways to enhance our premium and luxury offering across other categories,” says Morgan.
“We are lucky to have some of the most amazing produce on our shores here – for example, world-famous Maple. We sell everything from Maple syrup to Maple cookies to our best-selling Maple whisky – and this is all authentically Canadian.”
At the same time, in response to the uncertain tariff threats from the current U.S. administration, ARI has taken American spirits off the shelves in some locations.
“We work closely with the provincial government bodies here and we follow their guidelines. Our liquor is sourced via provincial liquor authorities and we follow their guidelines in terms of the products we can display, so as of now, no U.S. spirits are available in Quebec,” says Morgan.
New openings focus on sense of place
As ARINA opens new stores and refurbishes existing ones, it is essential that they all have a sense of place, says Morgan.
“A key focus has been on developing a unique sense of place across all locations, and we can see how this has been brought to life at Edmonton Duty Free through both store design and local product assortment,” he says.
“We first began our operations in Edmonton in January 2024 and at the beginning of this year, we unveiled our newly revamped stores.”
Two stores, located in YEG’s Domestic-International Departures Lounge and YEG’s US Departures Lounge, underwent significant refurbishments, taking inspiration from local landmarks as well as historic and cultural moments of significance. Each store has its own unique features, including a bespoke swing, inspired by Edmonton’s secret River Valley swing, and a replica dinosaur fossil suspended from the store ceiling, which pays homage to Edmonton’s history of dinosaur discoveries.
“I’m happy to say that the stores have been performing well and have been well received by both our airport partners and passengers,” says Morgan. “We’re looking forward to exploring more ways to grow and enhance our offering with our airport partners. U.S. routes to/from the airport have remained resilient and there is certainly more potential to grow this market.”
This summer, ARINA unveiled a new standalone duty-paid Spectrum sunglass boutique at Québec City Jean Lesage International Airport (YQB), an important evolution of its retail offer at the airport, where ARI began operating Québec Duty Free in 2017. This is ARINA’s second retail unit at the airport.
“The decision to open a standalone boutique really underpins the growing performance of the category and the potential to capitalize on strong PAX at the airport,” says Morgan. “Performance has been good so far, and we expect it to grow significantly during the peak ‘winter sun’ season of January – March.”
In September 2023, Chanel unveiled a new Travel Retail Fragrance and Beauty Boutique at Vancouver International Airport in partnership with ARINA.
“The Chanel store in Vancouver was our first venture into duty-paid concessions and we are very happy with the performance to date. In fact, it has underpinned duty paid as an important area of potential growth for our North American business; it’s about identifying the right opportunities with our partners,” says Morgan.
“We’re proud to work with an esteemed partner like Chanel to bring world-class experiences like this to life and further elevating the retail offer at Vancouver Airport.”
Next up is an extensive refurbishment of Montréal Duty Free.
“The retail space will be completely reimagined, and we’ll be building a strong sense of Montreal identity into every touchpoint of the passenger’s journey. We look forward to welcoming some exciting new brands to our offering and creating what I believe will be the best duty free in North America.”
More expansion ahead?
Almost three decades after starting its business in the market, ARINA has ambitions to open stores south in the United States, capitalizing on its deep understanding of the Canadian/North American duty free business.
“ARINA has operated for 27 years and our business has evolved with the region throughout this time. Travel retail itself is all about diversity, and that is reflected in our diverse team. It also affords us a better understanding of key passenger demographics, cultural nuances and shopping patterns, ultimately strengthening our proposition.”
Having the right team has always been key to ARINA’s success in the market, says Morgan.
“Our people are our most important asset. A key focus for me is ensuring we have a highly trained, motivated and happy team that can thrive in a supportive and empowering culture. ARI’s brand expression ‘joy on your way’ has really been embraced across the business and we’re collectively working towards a common goal of delivering a joyful experience to the passengers who come through our stores. This people-centric culture runs across every business unit in ARI’s global operation, and it’s a key point of difference for ARI.
“Partnership is an essential part of what we do. We pride ourselves on being the partner of choice for our brands, from providing global launch pads for new and exclusive products to delivering best in class brand activations.”
“We have built trusted, commercially successful partnerships with our airports across the region. We continue to work together to raise the bar and elevate the travel retail experience across North America,” he concludes.
