Country for PR: Hong Kong
Contributor: PR Newswire Asia (Hong Kong)
Friday, July 19 2019 - 11:00
AsiaNet
Collinson makes further investments in airport scale-ups to deliver its vision for a redefined airport experience
LONDON, July 19, 2019 /PRNewswire-AsiaNet/ --

Collinson(https://www.collinsongroup.com/), a global leader in customer 
benefits and loyalty, today announced a significant investment in French 
start-up Inflyter(http://www.inflyter.com/), the pre-eminent airport retail and 
duty free ordering platform. Collinson also announced further investment in 
Grab(https://getgrab.com/), the leading airport e-commerce platform.

Logo - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20181012/2266187-1LOGO

Inflyter, the airport retail and duty free ordering platform, provides mobile 
order-ahead capabilities for duty free goods, allowing travellers to browse and 
buy items ahead of travelling, saving time and ensuring availability of their 
desired products. This revolutionary service connects into duty free merchant 
catalogues at airports around the world, allowing consumers to shop and pay for 
their purchases in-app and collect with ease with several options outbound and 
on return. Inflyter has a number of other features to help retailers increase 
turnover and boost ancillary revenue for airports and airlines. It also 
delivers an improved experience and convenience for travellers through the 
airport.

Recent research articles point to an increasing consumer trend to pre-plan and 
ideally pre-purchase goods ahead of arriving at the airport1, especially 
amongst younger and Asian travellers. 

Collinson sees this as a key investment to fast-track innovation for its own 
core products, including the world's leading airport experiences programme, 
Priority Pass™(https://www.collinsongroup.com/en-eur/enrich/priority-pass). It 
also hopes to create an incubator to drive joint R&D in the airport arena with 
this highly innovative start-up.

The Inflyter investment coincides with a further tranche of Collinson 
investment in Grab, the airport e-commerce platform. Grab works with a rapidly 
growing number of airport operators and concession partners to deliver seamless 
airport take-out ordering, either in Grab's proprietary app, or built into 
airline or airport apps, with several major airlines and airports already key 
clients. This speeds up the shopping and dining process for consumers and 
increases basket value for concession partners. 

Both investments form part of Collinson's multi-million-dollar commitment to 
redefine the airport experience for passengers, following news of significant 
investment in India(https://tinyurl.com/y6anvbfp) and the 
US(https://tinyurl.com/y4l3cf6s) to fuel additional growth of Priority Pass. 
Collinson's vision is to make each journey more intelligent, personalised, 
enjoyable and profitable. This not only benefits the traveller but airport 
operators, retailers and service providers, as well as those that use the 
airport experience to build customer loyalty, such as payment networks and 
banks. 

As it is doing with Grab, Collinson will help accelerate Inflyter's development 
by enabling it to leverage Collinson's global footprint, expertise and 
relationships to expand to new clients and markets. In addition to its 
financial investment, Collinson will take a seat on Inflyter's Board.

Colin Evans, Founder and Chairman of Collinson, comments: "The travel retail 
business is experiencing tremendous change as it comes to grips with the 
increasingly digital passenger behaviour and their rapidly changing demands, 
such as pre-ordering and personalised experiences. Inflyter is a perfect fit 
for a growing need to engage passengers earlier in the journey, better 
understand their desires and to deliver when and how is convenient for them.

"This latest investment, in addition to the deepening relationship with Grab, 
means we can make the most of the fantastic talent in these young enterprises 
as part of our ongoing vision to create a joined-up passenger journey. For both 
Inflyter and Grab, we offer the ability to continue to innovate as a scale-up, 
taking advantage of their size and nimbleness, and provide access to the 
support of a US$1 billion turn-over business with close relationships with 
airlines, airports and financial services partners."

Wassim Saade, Founder and CEO of Inflyter, adds: "After working for two years 
with the support of some great French institutions and organisations including 
Ecole Polytechnique, Agoranov and BpiFrance, this new investment from Collinson 
marks our first round of direct investment with a partner that could not be 
better aligned with our strategic direction. With Collinson's support and 
Colin's direct involvement in our business, we are very excited to take the 
investment and scale at pace to keep up with the demand from Collinson itself, 
as well as airport operators, retailers and concessions."

While headquartered in France, Inflyter has set up offices in London to lead 
its R&D and main operations.

Sources: 
1. Top 10 Spending Nationalities Report / TRBusiness by m1nd-set 
2019(https://tinyurl.com/y5nlmtj2)

About Collinson:

Collinson(https://tinyurl.com/y6nxq48m) is a global leader in customer benefits 
and loyalty. We deliver exceptional travel, assistance and insurance products 
that differentiate value propositions, and loyalty solutions that win deeper, 
more valuable customer relationships.

Our customer benefits products include the world's leading airport experiences 
programme, Priority Pass, as well as travel insurance, identity assistance, 
flight delay, international health and travel risk management solutions. Our 
loyalty expertise uniquely combines strategy, award-winning technology and 
programme management to create greater engagement and experiences for our 
clients' customers.

For over 30 years, we've been chosen by the world's leading payment networks, 
1,400+ banks, 90+ airlines and 20+ hotel groups to craft customer experiences 
that win competitive edge. This enables them to acquire, engage and retain the 
most profitable, but most demanding customers. Our clients include Air France 
KLM, Asia Miles, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, InterContinental Hotels 
Group, Qatar Airways and Radisson Hotel Group.

About Inflyter: 

French start-up Inflyter(http://www.inflyter.com/) is the pre-eminent airport 
retail and duty-free ordering platform. The mobile app for travellers brings 
together the complete travel environment, regardless of the airline flown or 
airport visited. From flight-related information to transportation and airport 
services, duty-free retail offers and inMiles, Inflyter's brand-new loyalty 
programme, the platform helps to bring a seamless travel experience for 
passengers. Of significance to the regular traveller is the ability to 
pre-purchase duty-free goods at the airport, providing a seamless experience 
while ensuring desired goods are available.

Inflyter creates a network model to benefit airports, airport retailers and 
travellers alike. It creates additional turnover for retailers, and boosts 
ancillary revenue for airports and airlines, improving the profitability of 
pre-flight services.




Source: Collinson