Ethiopian airlines draws on Tourvest expertise
After a thorough tender process, Ethiopian Airlines has awarded Tourvest Inflight Retail Services (Tourvest) a management contract for their inflight retail and technology expertise in order to deliver a best in class inflight duty free product solution.
As the largest and fastest growing African airline, having achieved a number of recent prestigious awards, Ethiopian Airlines is further enhancing their inflight service to their passengers in alignment to global best practice in terms of inflight retail.
Mr Tewolde Gebremariam, Ethiopian Group CEO said, “in line with the airlines vision 2025 and in delivering a continuous improvement of our customer offerings, this cooperation, Tourvest, will help us to widen the choices of our Sky Duty Free retail with the best in class product varieties and with new services like pre-flight e:commerce orders through our website and with more convenient forms of payment in cash or various credit cards delivered by their TourPOS (Tourvest Point of Sale) inflight tablet device.”
Clive Jones, the Chief Executive Officer of Tourvest stated that “Ethiopian Airlines has 76 aircraft in operation with another 42 on order, delivering a service to over 7m passengers per year, covering 92 international destinations, across 5 continents. Given these impressive credentials, we are therefore very proud and honoured to be awarded with the opportunity to be associated with such a progressive and respected airline on the continent.”
Jones went on to say, “based on our initial engagements with the Ethiopian Airlines team we are excited by the energy to innovate and provide their customers with a world class inflight retail experience, which is exactly the mutual trust that we require to create a differentiated value proposition.”
Strategically, Tourvest are well positioned in the distribution of inflight duty free product on the African continent, given their impressive footprint in key markets including South African Airways, Kenya Airways, TAAG (Angola) and now Ethiopian Airlines, not to mention these airlines many international routes elsewhere in the world.
Tourvest’s footprint also includes another key flag carrier and global brand, British Airways.
About Tourvest Inflight Retail Services (Tourvest)
Tourvest are a leading provider of inflight Boutique Duty Free as well as Buy on Board food and beverage services.
Tourvest have corporate offices in England and South Africa with warehouse facilities covering >4500sqm in these particular countries, along with operations in Nigeria, Angola, Kenya and now Ethiopia.
They offer inflight retail services to, in alphabetical order, British Airways, Ethiopian Airlines, Kenya Airways, South African Airways, SA Express and TAAG, amongst others, which results in a total passenger count being serviced by Tourvest in excess of 50m on over 300 routes globally.
The Tourvest service also includes the training and support of the 28 000 inflight crew members within their client base.
Tourvest provide end to end software and hardware solutions, including their proprietary warehouse management software as well as tablet based TourPOS (Tourvest Point of Sale) devices. This provides the golden thread throughout the entire journey of all retail products, resulting in a best in class asset protection, reporting and wastage management solution.
Tourvest is the leader within the inflight retail industry in terms of innovation, particularly their e:commerce solutions, providing a “Buy Before You Fly” retail site engagement, which includes a strong social media presence. This also allows for airline loyalty program earn and redemption when purchasing Boutique or Buy on Board food and beverages Tourvest has won 16 international awards and are rated amongst the top 3 inflight retail operators in the world.
