Future Travel Experience met with Candice Cadreils, Director of the Commercial Business Unit at Aéroports de la Côte d’Azur, during the recent TFWA World Exhibition & Conference 2026 in Cannes. Nice Airport is undergoing a significant transformation of its commercial offer, with nearly 6,500sqm of retail renewed over the past three years and a clear ambition to make the airport experience more distinctive, experiential and closely connected to the identity of the French Riviera.
In this interview, Cadreils explains how Nice Airport is bringing together French luxury and savoir-faire, locally rooted products, globally recognised brands, immersive activations and new digital capabilities. From the expansion of duty free and the development of iconic boutiques to the launch of Nice Airport Shopping and the creation of flexible pop-up spaces, the airport is positioning retail as an increasingly integrated part of the passenger experience.
“Our participation at the TFWA World Exhibition & Conference serves three key objectives,” says Cadreils. “First and foremost, it is a privileged opportunity to meet our partners and the brands already present at our platform, and to exchange views on our respective activities in a spirit of co-creation. It is also a chance to discover new brands and gain insight into emerging market trends, allowing us to continuously evolve our offer.”
Join us at APEX FTE EMEA and Ancillary & Retailing, Dublin, 15-17 June 2027 >>Transforming the retail offer
Over the past three years, Nice Airport has undertaken a substantial renewal of its retail environment, covering nearly 6,500sqm. The scale of the transformation reflects an ambition to create an offer that is more distinctive and better aligned with the expectations of the diverse passenger profiles travelling through the airport.
“Our ambition is to offer every category of passenger a unique, surprising and innovative travel experience,” Cadreils explains.
The renewal has included the expansion of two walkthrough duty free stores in Terminals 1 and 2, alongside the creation of a new duty free store in the international zone of Terminal 2. Nice Airport has also expanded its historic Hermès boutique while continuing to develop its wider retail mix.
For Cadreils, the objective extends beyond simply increasing the scale of the commercial offer. The airport is seeking to reflect the character and reputation of the destination itself.
“Today, this new offer mirrors an exceptional destination where French savoir-faire and luxury come together,” she says. “Departing from or arriving in Nice should not feel like any ordinary journey.”
A key part of this strategy is the ability to offer travellers access to brands associated with French excellence and the Côte d’Azur, including brands that they may not encounter elsewhere in the airport environment.
“We have succeeded in attracting and retaining iconic brands representing French excellence that travellers won’t find at any other airport,” Cadreils says.
Bringing the Côte d’Azur into the airport
The relationship between airport retail and destination identity is particularly important in Nice, where the airport acts as a gateway to the French Riviera and Monaco.
That makes local authenticity an important component of the commercial proposition. While international passengers expect to find familiar global brands, Nice Airport also sees an opportunity to extend the destination experience into the terminal and give travellers something distinctive to remember from their time on the Côte d’Azur.
“Our airport is located in one of the most desirable regions in the world: we are the airport of the French Riviera and Monaco,” Cadreils says. “Showcasing local products is therefore essential to giving our passengers a final touch of authenticity before departure, and helping them carry lasting memories of their time in our region.”
The airport therefore encourages its retail partners to develop an offer with a strong sense of place, while maintaining an international dimension that gives reassurance and familiarity to a cosmopolitan passenger base.
“At the same time, we do not overlook the need to reassure our international passengers with the presence of major globally recognised brands,” Cadreils explains. “It is this balance between local roots and international reach that gives richness to our retail mix.”
For Nice Airport, the local and global elements are therefore complementary rather than competing priorities: one reinforces the destination proposition, while the other ensures the offer remains relevant to an international audience.
Infrastructure as a platform for commercial growth
The commercial transformation is taking place alongside wider investment in the airport environment.
This spring, Nice Airport inaugurated an extension of Terminal 2, representing another step in the airport’s efforts to enhance the passenger experience while increasing operational capacity.
“Beyond increasing our operational capacity, this development enhances comfort, fluidity and service quality throughout the journey,” Cadreils says.
Combined with continued growth in air connectivity and the enduring attractiveness of the French Riviera, the airport sees these developments as important foundations for the future growth of its commercial ecosystem.
But physical expansion is only one part of the strategy. Nice Airport is also creating more flexible opportunities for brands through ephemeral retail spaces and pop-up concepts. These spaces can give travel retail players a highly visible platform within the terminals, while allowing the airport and its partners to experiment with new products, concepts and forms of engagement. “These pop-ups are genuine visibility accelerators for travel retail players and contribute to the dynamism of our commercial offer,” Cadreils explains. “Nice Airport is therefore the ideal place to trial or unveil a new product, and to deploy a highly visual pop-up concept at the heart of terminals where footfall and passenger profiles are of exceptional quality.”
This approach allows the airport to keep its commercial environment dynamic while giving brands greater flexibility to test new ideas and create moments of discovery.
Building an omnichannel airport experience
Alongside the transformation of the physical environment, digital innovation is becoming an increasingly important part of Nice Airport’s retail strategy.
The airport has launched Nice Airport Shopping, a new marketplace designed to extend the travel retail experience into the digital journey. “Innovation is at the heart of our retail strategy,” says Cadreils. “Our ambition is to deliver a seamless, service-oriented omnichannel experience throughout the passenger journey.”
The platform already enables passengers to order online and choose free delivery to the VIP lounge or directly to the boarding gate. The aim is to make the shopping experience more convenient and personalised while creating a stronger connection between digital discovery and the physical airport environment.
“This platform marks the first step of a broader digital ecosystem that will ultimately bring together retail, catering, airport services and partners within a single, unified journey,” Cadreils explains.
The ambition therefore goes beyond creating an online retail channel. Nice Airport sees digital as an enabler for a more connected passenger journey in which different services and commercial touchpoints can increasingly work together.
Turning retail into an experience
As the physical and digital elements of the offer evolve, experiential engagement is becoming another central pillar of the strategy. For Nice Airport, this is particularly important because passengers arriving at the airport have already experienced the strong visual, cultural and lifestyle proposition of the French Riviera. “Our passengers must leave with an iconic memory of their time on the Côte d’Azur before departing this exceptional destination,” Cadreils says. “This is imperative.”
That means encouraging brands to think beyond the transaction itself and create experiences capable of capturing attention and generating emotional engagement. “Our clientele is cosmopolitan, discerning, and highly receptive to strong brand signatures,” Cadreils explains. “We encourage brands to deploy immersive activations: sensory or artistic installations, storytelling around craftsmanship, personalisation, and more.”
This could involve everything from sensory installations and artistic experiences to storytelling around craftsmanship and personalised interactions. The objective is to create experiences that passengers remember and want to share, extending the impact of the retail environment beyond the point of purchase. “Beyond the purchase itself, our ambition is to turn every passenger into a true brand ambassador,” Cadreils says.
That also means recognising the growing importance of social media in how passengers experience and communicate their journeys. “This means designing experiences that are Instagrammable and TikTokable — striking visual settings, moments of surprise, experiences that people want to share and talk about.”
Creating a distinctive travel retail proposition
For Nice Airport, the next phase of commercial development is about bringing these different elements together: destination identity, French luxury and savoir-faire, globally recognised brands, flexible retail concepts, digital services and experiential engagement. The airport’s recent investment in its retail environment and Terminal 2 infrastructure provides the physical foundations, while Nice Airport Shopping represents an important step towards a more connected digital ecosystem.
At the same time, the emphasis on local authenticity and experiential activations reflects a wider ambition to ensure that the commercial environment feels intrinsically connected to the destination. “It is this alchemy between the Riviera’s sense of place, a demand for excellence and a desire to surprise that makes Nice Côte d’Azur Airport a unique platform for experiential travel retail,” Cadreils concludes.
Join us at APEX FTE EMEA and Ancillary & Retailing, Dublin, 15-17 June 2027 >>What’s next – APEX FTE EXPO, Singapore, 18 to 19 November 2026
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