THERE exists a slice of retail heaven between passport control and the boarding gate: travellers are the perfect captive audience for duty-free stores with their jumbo Toblerone chocolate bars and mega-sized bottles of spirits.Shopping has become an increasingly relevant component of the air-tourism value chain, as consumers — who essentially are grounded (if only for a golden hour) — amble about.The story is in the figures. Travellers at OR Tambo’s international airside duty-free mall rang up sales to the tune of just over R2bn between April 2014 and March last year.Now, as part of its diversification, Airports Company SA (Acsa), which owns OR Tambo International and eight other airports in SA, has put more fire-power into travel retail — what Pernod Ricard, owner of Absolut vodka and Chivas Regal whisky, dubbed the "sixth continent".About 37% of Acsa’s revenues come from nonaeronautical services such as car parking, real estate and retail, a figure that the parastatal is looking t...
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