For decades now, KLM has been meeting customer needs by offering tax-free articles, both online and on board. More recently, however, customers have grown accustomed to an almost infinite range of products for which they can look up the lowest price online. Competition with product ranges at the airports is also growing.

KLM is currently exploring alternative forms of travel retail concept. “We will shortly be launching several pilot projects to this end. Customer convenience and a wide range of products are central to this,” Ms. Kartman says.

“Based on our strong position in Europe, you can see that we regularly find opportunities to strengthen our international position,” says KLM CEO Pieter Elbers. “Having extended our destinations on the North American continent this year to Salt Lake City and Miami, and to Colombo (Sri Lanka) and Astana (Kazakhstan), we have now added another KLM destination in Africa. We operate 55 flights a week to destinations in Africa.”

Namibia is both economically and politically stable. Its stunning nature attracts a great deal of high-end ecotourism. Some highlights include the sand dunes of the Namib Desert (the oldest in the world), wildlife parks, and its beautiful beaches. Winter here is summer there. Windhoek is Namibia’s capital. It is known to be a surprisingly modern and green city in the middle of the desert. It offers a wide variety of cultural and culinary adventures. And for shoppers, there is much to discover in this lively African city.

Windhoek is KLM’s twelfth destination in Africa. We already fly to Luanda (Angola), Johannesburg and Cape Town (South Africa), Nairobi (Kenya), Kilimanjaro and Dar es Salaam (Tanzania), Entebbe (Uganda), Kigali (Rwanda), Lagos (Nigeria), Accra (Ghana) and Cairo (Egypt).Together with our partners, we serve 56 different destinations in Africa.