THE BARBADOS CHAMBER of Commerce & Industry has lauded Duty Free Caribbean Holdings for its efforts to introduce new high-end brands to its portfolio.
Last Wednesday the group launched the Victorinox line of luxury luggage and travel items to its Harrison’s, Nicholas House store and BCCI president Lalu Vaswani said this represented a “commendable effort”.
“We feel that this is a wonderful example for what businesses need to do to survive in difficult times,” he said.
During the launch event at the Broad Street, Bridgetown store, he said businesses had to “keep sharpening the sword” in order to remain successful.
“While we’re going through difficult times, we may not be able to do much in increasing our numbers but what we can do is increase value spend of the customers that do come and that can benefit the economy,” he said.
Chief development officer of Duty Free Caribbean, Maureen Davis, said the group was “ecstatic” about landing the 130-year-old Swiss brand and confident it would do well.
“We believe it’s the birth of a long and mutually beneficial relationship. We hope that we can expand to other ranges within the brand,” she said.
Victorinox sales manager for travel retail, Abraham Rodriguez, who visited the island for the launch, said the company was focused on developing its travel goods in duty-free markets, including those in the Caribbean.
“Hopefully, we will expand into some other varieties of our products but we have started slowly and we’re going to keep developing our brand,” he said. (NB)
