There was a time when buying a bottle of tax-free perfume as a gift or personal indulgence was a standard part of a trip for many travellers.
But while sales of duty-free beauty products have been rising over all in recent years, the proportion spent on scent has declined.
And even as the number of global travellers increases - it is expected to rise 3.1 per cent this year - terrorism and security concerns have cut sharply into arrivals in France and Turkey, countries traditionally found near the top of the most-visited lists, and economic and political turmoil has curbed what were rising numbers of outbound travellers from other countries, including Russia and Brazil.
What's a fragrance brand or tax-free retailer to do?
Many companies have decided to put more emphasis on those who continue to travel, tailoring their offerings to match the distinct tastes of on-the-move shoppers in specific regions.
"We are living in a VUCA world," said Vincent Boinay, managing director of travel retailing at L'Oreal, whose portfolio of fragrance brands includes Lancôme, Viktor & Rolf and Giorgio Armani. The acronym he used - borrowed by the business world from American military jargon - stands for volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity.
And so, he continued, "one of the key rules in our business model is agility."
That agility is needed to cope with the depressed duty-free fragrance market. In 2015, sales in the beauty category, which includes scent, makeup and skin care products, totalled $19.8 billion, with fragrance accounting for 43.6 per cent, according to Generation Research, a travel analytics company.
But in 2014, the overall sales were $19.3 billion, with fragrance accounting for 48.7 per cent and, in 2013, $17.5 billion and fragrance, 50.8 per cent.
The decline in the percentage of fragrance sales, which can be attributed to factors including a decrease in disposable income in some countries, has been a wake-up call to businesses.
"Fragrance companies have understood that one size doesn't fit all," said Peter Mohn, chief executive of m1nd-set, a Swiss-based research firm that focuses on travel retailing. "They really understand that they have to have a different portfolio that they offer in different regions of the world.
"Ten years ago that wasn't the case - they were mostly standardised," he continued. "Now companies are understanding more and more what travellers are looking for, so they're adapting more to the passenger mix at the airport."
For example, Armani/Prive, one of the brands Boinay works with, created a fragrance last year with Chinese customers in mind. Called Pivoine Suzhou, it has a scent redolent of peony (pivoine, in French), a flower that is a Chinese symbol of wealth and happiness. The perfume's box is detailed with lines about the flower by Liu Yuxi, a Tang Dynasty poet, written in Chinese calligraphy.
For the holiday season, a special eau de toilette edition, infused with specks of mother of pearl, is being distributed to duty-free destinations, especially those most popular with Chinese travellers. Similarly, Miracle, a floral scent by Lancôme, is being spotlighted in some duty-free stores that cater to the Chinese, while La Vie Est Belle, another Lancôme fragrance, with iris gourmand notes combined with patchouli, is being marketed more toward Europeans and Americans.
But fragrance companies are not alone in focusing on Asia, the world's biggest duty-free market, with more than $25 billion spent there last year, according to Generation Research.
© 2016 The New York Times
