Duty Free Shops at Entebbe Airport Decry Low End Of Year Sales
Written by admin on December 27, 2021
They were expecting to make at least 500 sales a day in the last two weeks of the year. However, they say they are making less than 200 sales daily. Even Christmas and Boxing Day sales were not more than 250.
Though Uganda Civil Authority – UCAA records show an increase in the number of passengers in the last three months, duty free shop keepers at the departures section say few of these travelers are buying items in their shelves.
UCAA figures show an average of 2,000 people travel every day up from 1, 800 in January 2021. These figures are still low because before March 2020 when COVID-19 hit Uganda, an average of 5,412 passengers would travel daily through Entebbe International airport.
Due to the newly discovered Omicron variant, countries keep changing their travel restrictions. As a result, the December figures are also affected by these measures which include testing, quarantine among others.
Wadri Bosco, a salesman at Uganda Duty Free shop says travelers are shopping less to ensure they have liquid cash when air-bound. “Things keep changing every now and then so travelers are not sure if they will not be affected by new or revised restrictions such as COVID-19 tests and quarantine. So they would rather not buy the non-essential duty free items and have some money for unplanned requirements,” says Wadri.
As a result, he says less than 200 travelers have been buying items daily in the last two weeks. Yet over 1,300 passengers depart every day.
“Before COVID-19, our festive season was crazy. We would make over 400 sales daily and have at least seven staff per shift to handle customers and sometimes we would even work longer hours when there were many people,” he noted.
