Page 22 - Travel Markets Insider October 2021 Final

INSIDER

Frontier Duty Free Association to hold a virtual “Back to Business”
Summit in November

Canadian land border duty free’s
Frontier Duty Free Association (FDFA)
has announced it will be holding a virtual
summit for operator members November
15-18, 2021, during the time that is usually
slotted for its in-person convention.
The newly conceived summit will
include working sessions designed to help
get stores back to business with a number
of operations areas to be covered, including
working with some suppliers who have
seen major supply-chain disruptions.
The goal of the 3-day virtual event
will be to help stores revitalize innovation,
facilitate inventory management and
supplier connections.
“Land border duty free stores have The FDFA Board and manager at the 2019 Convention: from left: Philippe Bachand – Director,
been essentially closed since March 2020 Philipsburg Duty Free; Barbara Barrett, Executive Director; Simon Resch – Treasurer; DFS Ventures
and during that time, there have been (Emerson Duty Free); Allison Gardner, Manager of Operations; Abe Taqtaq – President, Windsor-
changes in the supply chain and inventories Detroit Tunnel Duty Free Shop; Tania Lee - Vice President, Blue Water Bridge Duty Free Shop; and
Cameron Bissonnette – Secretary, Osoyoos Duty Free Shop.
have been depleted,” said Barbara Barrett,
FDFA Executive Director. “Operators
need to acquire up-to-date product and store owners, suppliers, distributors, and Additionally, the association will
innovations.” major sponsors from across Canada. be introducing a new Brand Discovery
The Association also announced that it “With the border partially open, it is Program coming in the new year to
has set a date for an in-person 2022 FDFA time to get them ready for being back to a facilitate sourcing new competitive
Convention, to take place Nov. 14-17. regular business flow,” said Barrett. “We products globally for Canadian land border
The location and details are to be are excited to be able to connect again, duty free stores.
determined. even if only virtually, and certainly excited FDFA says that further details will
The very popular event has to be able to talk about getting back to follow in the coming months.
traditionally brought together duty free business.”

The COVID-19 pandemic has hit
Canada’s tourism industry particularly
hard.
On March 18, 2020 the Government
of Canada restricted entry to non-
residents for non-essential travel from all
international destinations.
After 18 months with the border
closed, Canada officially reopened its
doors to fully vaccinated Americans this
past August, and to all international
visitors in September. However, Canadians
can still not cross the land border to enter
the U.S.
This border closure has devastated
Canada’s tourism industries and has left
many of the land border stores closed or
open to only essential workers coming
across the border.
Total international arrivals to Canada
in 2020 were 2.96 million, dropping 86.6%
versus 2019. Slightly less than 2 million
Americans (1.93 million) visited Canada in
2020, down 87.1% versus the year before.

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