Alex Willson is the Retail & Ecommerce Director for Samsonite Group UK, whilst also being the Brand Director for TUMI UK. He has worked in the travel industry for nearly 20 years across many categories (luggage, beauty, sunglasses, accessories, souvenirs, watches and jewellery), with World Duty Free, Aldeasa and Alpha, and across both major hub airports and stations in the UK, Europe and Asia. He is keen to extend the success of both the TUMI and Samsonite brands in travel retail across the UK and Europe into the wider cruise industry, tailoring the ranges to each passenger profile.
Samsonite Group owns three of the market leading luggage/bag brands in Europe, namely TUMI (luxury positioning), Samsonite (premium positioning) and American Tourister (high-street positioning), with both TUMI and Samsonite being the top selling brands within the travel retail industry respectively. For every travel retail door, we work closely with our customers to ensure each brand has the right range offering depending on the passenger profile/need and spending power. We always get challenged on why passengers would buy luggage in a travel environment once they are on board a ship or already at the airport, but the figures speak for themselves.