Wakefield Wines, the family-owned Australian winery from South Australia’s Clare Valley, has launched a new activation at Dubai International Airport, reinforcing its commitment to global travel retail and strengthening its visibility within one of the industry’s most influential retail environments. Developed in partnership with King of Reach by B&S and Dubai Duty Free, the immersive pop-up has been designed to engage international travellers at a key moment of consideration — creating a premium brand experience within one of the world’s busiest international travel hubs.
The initiative forms part of Wakefield Wines’ broader strategy to build stronger consumer connections and enhance brand visibility across key international markets through the travel retail channel. With Dubai International Airport having welcomed more than 95 million passengers in 2025, the activation gives Wakefield Wines a uniquely efficient platform to engage diverse, high-value consumers from multiple global markets within a single destination — rather than pursuing market-by-market expansion through conventional retail channels.
Why Dubai? The Strategic Logic Behind the Activation
For a premium wine brand seeking to scale its international footprint, few locations offer the combination of footfall, purchasing power and cultural diversity that Dubai International Airport provides. As one of the world’s principal long-haul transfer hubs, DXB connects travellers from Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas — giving brands like Wakefield Wines simultaneous access to consumer bases that would otherwise require years of market-by-market development to reach.
“Travel retail is a strategically important channel for Wakefield Wines, and Dubai Duty Free is the perfect platform to reach premium consumers from around the world,” said Chris Davis, Global Travel Retail Business Manager at Wakefield Wines. The framing is deliberate: rather than treating the airport as a single point of sale, Wakefield Wines is positioning Dubai Duty Free as a global brand-building stage — a place where reputation, not just revenue, compounds with every traveller who walks past the activation.
Global travel retail is a strategically important channel for Wakefield Wines, and Dubai Duty Free is the perfect platform to reach premium consumers from around the world. This activation, delivered in partnership with King of Reach by B&S, strengthens our brand visibility in key international markets and creates engaging experiences that inspire travelers to discover our wines.
Dubai International Airport is one of the most important locations in global travel retail, and in partnership with Dubai Duty Free we recognized early on that it was the perfect platform to build meaningful visibility for Wakefield Wines. This activation reflects the way King of Reach approaches distribution, not simply as a supply function but as a genuine commercial partnership.
From Clare Valley to Dubai: 57 Years of Family Winemaking
Wakefield Wines’ Dubai Duty Free activation is the latest chapter in a family story that began nearly six decades ago — the same week humanity first walked on the moon.
Inside the Partnership: How King of Reach Connects Brands to Airports
Central to the Wakefield Wines activation is King of Reach by B&S, the distribution and brand-building specialist that connects beverage and confectionery brands with major global travel retail operators. Rather than functioning purely as a logistics intermediary, King of Reach positions itself as a strategic partner — working alongside brands to design activations that convert footfall into long-term brand consideration, not simply point-of-sale transactions.
That distinction matters in a channel as competitive as Dubai Duty Free, which has held the Best Duty Free Shopping in the Middle East award for 25 consecutive years at the Business Traveller Middle East Awards, and reported annual sales of approximately US$2.378 billion in 2025 — placing it among the top five duty free retailers globally. Securing meaningful shelf presence and activation space within that environment requires a partner who understands both the brand’s commercial goals and the operational realities of one of the world’s highest-footfall airports.
