April is traditionally the month the duty free industry turns its collective head to the Americas and the annual Summit of the Americas trade show, organised by the US-based International Association of Airport & Duty Free Stores (IAADFS). This year, the smallest of the duty free industry’s three major trade shows will run from 14-17 April at the Palm Beach County Convention Center in sunny West Palm Beach, Florida.

The summit’s conference will be held on Monday, 15 April, although at press time no details of the speakers and topics to be discussed had been released. Morning educational sessions are also promised and networking events will take place on the Sunday, Monday and Tuesday evenings of the show. Again, no details have yet been revealed.

What is confirmed is the attendance among the exhibitors of big drinks players such as Bacardi Global Travel Retail, Diageo Global Travel and Pernod Ricard Travel Retail Americas, as well as smaller firms such as the Bordeaux wine company Barton & Guestier, the prosecco and grappa producer Bottega Spa and Meukow Cognac.

The general lack of buzz around the IAADFS Summit of the Americas contrasts with next month’s TFWA Asia Pacific Exhibition in Singapore and the industry’s largest calendar event, the TFWA World Exhibition & Conference in October in Cannes, France. It reflects the fact that the region remains overlooked as a travel retail market despite performing very well in the post-pandemic period due to the strong US dollar and a powerful revenge travel trend.

For the drinks sector, the Americas remain an important source of sales and focus of interest, especially for sales of tequila, rum and whisk(e)y. That’s thanks in particular to the strength of Latin American markets such as Brazil, where the domestic taxes on liquor are high, and the booming cruise ship sector, where the Caribbean remains the leading destination.

Cruise revival

The cruise industry’s post-pandemic revival has been nothing short of amazing. Around 31.5 million people took a cruise last year, a giant 54% increase versus 2022, according to the industry body Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA). That total is forecast to soar to 39.5 million by 2027 with the number of ocean-going cruise vessels worldwide expected to exceed 300 for the first time in 2024.

Although the age demographic of the cruise-going community is still skewed towards the silver-haired – 33% of cruise tourists are aged over 60 – cruise, holidays are growing in popularity among younger generations as cruise lines offer shorter cruises and accelerate their efforts to make cruise holidays more sustainable. Indeed, millennials are the generation most likely to book a repeat cruise holiday.

The cruise business remains an Americas-dominated sector with the top five most visited cruise ports being located in the region (Miami, Port Canaveral, Cozumel, Port Everglades and Nassau). Consequently, spirits brands with a strong domestic focus in the Americas are finding that investing in this fast-growing channel is paying dividends.

“About 50% of our travel retail business is in the cruise sector, it’s a channel that is extremely important for our brand so we put a lot of energy and focus into it,” says John McDonnell, managing director international of Tito’s Handmade Vodka.

“In addition to retail sales on cruise ships, Tito’s Handmade Vodka is also increasingly popular for onboard consumption/pouring, and on many cruise lines we also have 50ml bottles in the minibar, while on Virgin Cruise ships we have 37.5cl bottles of Tito’s in their suites.”

Meanwhile, Holland America has partnered with Kentucky’s Buffalo Trace distillery to create a single-barrel bourbon which was made available across the cruise line’s entire fleet from last month. A team from Holland America joined Sazerac master blender Drew Mayville at the Buffalo Trace distillery to personally select the barrel. The whiskey is now available to purchase neat or as part of an Old Fashioned cocktail in the Ocean Bar of each Holland America ship.

The trend has even crossed over the Atlantic to Europe. Earlier this year, English brewer and distiller Adnams teamed up with Suffolk-based Fred Olsen Cruise Lines to finish a cask of Adnams’ nine-year-old English whisky onboard the Borealis ship for a 103-night world cruise. When Borealis returns to the UK, the cask will be drained, bottled and the finished whisky will go on sale across Fred Olsen’s fleet.

“This is actually a centuries-old maritime tradition,” says Fred Olsen Cruise Lines hotel operations director Thomas Rennesland. “In the days before glass bottles, spirits were transported in barrels from where they were made to where they were sold. These days many brands are returning to these routes and looking to age their products at sea, and we are absolutely thrilled to play host to a brand that is local to us here in Suffolk.”

Of course, travel retail exclusives have become a common sight on the shelves of land-based duty free stores over the past two decades but, given the projected growth of the cruise ship sector in the coming years, I suspect many more cruise ship whiskies are in the pipeline.