Treasury eyes travel retail potential

Treasury Wine Estates has announced three new appointments to support its ambition for wine to rival spirits’ success in the Global Travel Retail sector.

Setting out the group’s strategy, Andrew Carter, Treasury’s managing director for GTR, remarked: “Today, wine is under-represented in the Global Travel Retail market, with spirits tending to dominate – we want to change that.”

Although Treasury brands Penfolds, Wolf Blass and Lindeman’s are already widely available at airports across Australia, Asia and Europe, Carter confirmed plans for a more global focus.

“Our ambition is to significantly grow the size of our GTR business over the next five years, to become a genuine leader in the category, by inspiring travellers to discover and love great wine, and great wine brands,” he explained.

Within this outline, Carter identified two priority focus areas: “to increase the scale of our presence in GTR, and to build our brands in this critical global shop window.” In particular, he highlighted GTR as “a perfect place to showcase our luxury and fine wines.”

In order to implement this strategy, Treasury has brought in three new members of its GTR team, each of whom were described by Carter as “highly experienced senior leaders in the drinks industry.”

Former GTR finance director at Bacardi, Tom King, has been appointed GTR commercial director, which will see him take charge of developing Treasury’s GTR strategy, annual operating plan and customer relationships.

King will work alongside Alexandre Bussiere, Treasury’s new GTR customer marketing director, who was previously wine category merchandising manager of luxury travel retailer DFS.

Also joining the team is Gordon Buchannan, who has been appointed sales manager for travel retail UK & continental Europe. Like King, to whom he will report, Buchannan was previously part of the Bacardi travel retail team, where he held the role of regional manager for UK & Ireland.

All three will take up their new posts in January 2013.