The $70bn-plus Travel channel, led by fragrances and cosmetics, is on the front line of geopolitical and socioeconomic change, including swiftly shifting consumer demographics, desires and buying patterns. Numerous key travel retail fundamentals remain strong, however, including people’s innate instinct to travel and explore. Air passenger numbers are therefore expected to double in the next 20 years to 18bn annually.

Conversion is the hot topic. Overall, 75% of passengers’ downtime in airports is not spent shopping. Yet data indicates that 45% of shoppers say in-store experiences drive purchases. The stakes are high for the beauty industry, which in duty-free and travel-retail stores generated $11bn, down 5.5%, in first-half 2025 versus the same prior-year period, according to Generation Research data. Overall, the channel rang up $36.2bn, up 0.7% in the same timeframe.

At TFWA, L’Oréal showed examples of how it intends to turn airports into entertainment destinations. At the Yves Saint Laurent kiosk, for instance, one could chill by listening to music through a headset then download the tunes via a QR code. The brand also published some city guides, created by local brand ambassadors. There was screen playtime involving a makeup look being tried on virtually, and Libre women’s scent being offered in a 10-ml. travel size.

In the first half of this year, beauty travel-retail and duty-free sales in the Asia-Pacific region declined 13%, Generation statistics show. The European beauty travel-retail and duty-free market remains dynamic, up 7%, with all beauty categories registering gains and the largest increase from fragrances, according to Generation Research. Within that category, luxury niche brands are the winners. Beauty sales in the channel in the Middle East and Africa zone were up 10%, led by fragrances, while in the Americas, the business increased 4%. There, perfumes and skin care posted upticks, while makeup was down.

Travel retail is burgeoning on cruise ships, unanchored to any specific geography and where passenger traffic is growing by 9% year-on-year, to reach 37.7mn in 2025, according to the Cruise Lines International Association.