A Firsthand View of the Luxury Retail Stores at Chengdu Tianfu International Airport

August 5,2021

With Chengdu Tianfu International Airport going into operation on June 27, 2021, Chengdu becomes the third city with two airports in Mainland China after Beijing and Shanghai. A few days ago, Luxe.CO’s reporter paid a visit to the new airport and had a firsthand view of the luxury retail stores there.

Chengdu Tianfu International Airport is a 4F-class airport, the highest grade of airport, with two terminals. Jinshe Hui, the taxable luxury zone of up to 2,700 square meters, is located at Terminal 2. Fourteen well-known luxury brands have already opened stores there, including Louis Vuitton, Dior, Gucci, Burberry, Balenciaga, Bottega Veneta, Max Mara, Loro piana, Omega, Moncler, Valentino, BVLGARI, Saint Laurent, and Alexander McQueen. According to a staff member of the airport, Hermès will open a directly-managed store there soon.

This is the first Louis Vuitton store in the taxable shopping area of an airport in central and western China, and also the first Dior store in the tax area of any airport in China.

These luxury brands have sufficient stocks in their stores. A Xiaohongshu user commented, “There are quite a number of super popular LV handbags. I have bought several for my friends, which we usually have to queue up for hours simply for a reservation.” According to a sales assistant of the Gucci store, some handbags are sold at the airport store only and are not available yet at the other Gucci stores in Chengdu.

According to a report of Sichuan Daily, the three luxury brands of LVMH - Louis Vuitton, Dior, and Loro Piana – open directly-managed stores at Jinshe Hui; Gucci, a brand of Kering Group, authorized a reseller to obtain the store and assigns a directly-managed team to run the operations. The other luxury brands at Jinshe Hui are all operated by well-known Lagardère Travel Retail.