Avolta AG (until November 2023: Dufry AG) is a Swiss-based travel retailer which operates duty-free and duty-paid shops and convenience stores in airports, cruise lines, seaports, railway stations and central tourist areas. The company, headquartered in Basel, employs almost 36,000 people and operates in over 65 countries worldwide. It is publicly traded on the SIX Swiss Exchange.
 | |
| Formerly |
|
|---|---|
| Company type | Public company |
| SIX: AVOL | |
| Industry | Travel Retail |
| Founded | 1865; 159 years ago (1865) |
| Headquarters | Basel, Switzerland |
Area served | Worldwide |
Key people | Juan Carlos Torres Carretero (board chair) Xavier Rossinyol (CEO) |
| Products | Consumer Goods |
| Subsidiaries | Hudson, World Duty Free, Nuance, Hellenic Duty Free Shops, Reg Staer, Duty Free Uruguay, Duty Free Argentina, Colombian Emeralds |
| Website | avoltaworld.com |
The company's retail brands are:
In addition, Dufry is also used as a brand name for some general travel retail shops.[citation needed]
The company owns stores at airports, railway stations and ports, and operates concessions onboard airlines and cruise ships.
By August 2017, the Chinese HNA Group, which declared bankruptcy in 2021, had acquired a 20.92% stake in Avolta, worth more than $1 billion.[1] According to the Dutch OSINT platform Datenna, HNA Groups's stake in Avolta led to a medium risk of state influence on Avolta by the Chinese government.[2] HNA Group's airport division was acquired by Hainan Development Holdings on 24 December 2021. However, HNA reduced their share to 3% in 2019.[3]
On 24 October 2023, Dufry announced it was entering a strategic partnership with Hubei Airport Group, a Chinese based air transportation support company. The deal allows Dufry to operate as the Terminal 2 master concessionaire overseeing 77 shops at Wuhan Tianhe International Airport, China’s fourteenth busiest airport.[4]
Dufry's name was changed to Avolta AG on 3 November 2023, after a 99.8% approval by shareholders during an Extraordinary General Meeting convened[5] following the takeover of Autogrill.
Some of the principal locations of the company are: