Dubai: Airport retailer Dubai Duty Free (DDF) expects spending by Russians to fall by Dh160 million this year, according to a top company executive.
“We found this year a big drop in Russian traffic and spend,” Colm McLoughlin, executive vice-chairman of DDF, told Gulf News on the sidelines of the CPA Congress, which opened in Dubai on Sunday. He did not, however, say how much Russian travellers spent last year.
Russian passenger traffic at Dubai International Airport has been down in the last 18 months due to the impact of a weak Russian rouble and low oil prices on the Russian economy. However, Paul Griffiths, chief executive of Dubai Airports, said last week that the market is rebounding.
Russian tourists have traditionally been among the biggest spenders in Dubai, but their spending has decreased, largely due to a weaker rouble.
Credit or debit card spending by Russian shoppers in the UAE dropped by 30 per cent year-on-year last Ramadan, according to a report by Network International, a credit card payments processing company.
However, a growth in spending by Chinese travellers has compensated for the drop in Russian spending so far this year, McLoughlin said, adding that Chinese passengers will likely represent 12 per cent of DDF’s business this year, up from 9 per cent last year. “Their spend this year is about Dh140 million more than last year.”
The airport retailer anticipates sales to reach Dh7.3 billion in the current year and grow to touch Dh8 billion in 2016, with the biggest spenders being Asian travellers.
It is reaping the benefits of Emirates airline’s rapid growth, which carried 49.3 million passengers in the financial year ended March 2015.
DDF continues to expand its retail operation. It will run 7,000 square metres of retail space in Dubai International’s Concourse D, which is currently in the handover stage to operator Dubai Airports.
Online sales
The retailer is focusing on growing its online sales too. It generated Dh35 million in online sales year-to-date and “expects the year to finish at about Dh50 million,” McLoughlin said. By 2016, he expects online sales to at least double to reach Dh100 million.
“We introduced ‘click and collect’ in the beginning of 2015 … people could collect [what they chose online] and pay for [purchases] at that point,” McLoughlin said. But since a number of orders were not collected, he said, DDF is now introducing a programme to ensure people commit to paying for their online purchases.
