Luxottica expands in travel retail

Predicting that sales of sunglasses in travel retail will double in the next few years, Luxottica is planning on a major expansion of its Sunglass Hut chain.

The Italian manufacturer views travel retail as possessing rich potential for further development, claiming that sunglass sales in the sector would double in the next five years at a sunglass workshop held at a Tax Free World Association conference in Cannes late last year.

Speaking about the proposed expansion to travel retail news provider The Moodie Report, Luxottica's chief marketing officer and executive vice president sun and luxury retail, Fabio D'Angelantonio said: 'We think this channel is an incredible driver of growth, and yet it's highly under-exploited in terms of size and breadth of assortment. So we want to be a leader in developing sunglasses in this channel and as industry captain play a major role.'