News

March 13th, 2024

Lagardère Travel Retail accelerates the implementation of innovative solutions through strategic partnership with RaiseLab

Lagardère Travel Retail is pleased to announce an exclusive partnership with RaiseLab, a pioneering company dedicated to fostering open innovation. This strategic collaboration underscores Lagardère Travel Retail's ambition to be the most innovative player within the Travel Retail industry and to accelerate the implementation of innovative solutions.

Lagardère Travel Retail partners with RaiseLab, a joint venture between Raise and Schoolab, the first French structure solely dedicated to Open Innovation which supports the transformation of companies to accelerate their innovation projects as well as help them transition to more agile organizations. Their strategic and operational expertise spans the establishment and management of Proof-of-Concepts, project acceleration, and implementation.

This collaboration unfolds in two distinctive phases, showcasing our commitment to accelerate innovation within Lagardère Travel Retail.

In the initial phase, our innovation central teams will join forces with the French Travel Essentials network to implement a series of pioneering Proof-of-Concepts such as flow management, AI translation corner, dynamic screens and advanced vending services. The invaluable insights and knowledge gained from the initial pilot phase will guide us in defining an optimal methodology and governance structure for accelerating implementation across our network. The expertise acquired will be a catalyst, benefiting our entire network and empowering us to deliver innovative, customer-centric solutions more efficiently and faster.

Claire Duflos, VP Marketing Lagardère Travel Retail said: "We believe that by reinforcing and accelerating our innovation initiatives through the strategic partnership with RaiseLab, we can elevate the Travel Retail shopping experience. Our goal is not only to meet the evolving needs of our landlords and travellers but to exceed expectations by constantly pushing the boundaries of what's possible in Travel Retail innovation."

Lagardère Travel Retail aims to design and deliver agile, relevant, and value-added innovative solutions tailored to landlord commercial expectations and passenger needs, creating seamless and memorable travel experiences.

An example of Lagardère Travel Retail’s unique ability to continually redefine and elevate the travel experience is the integration of the world’s leading-edge technology with the opening of three automated stores last year.

Paul Jeannest, CEO of RaiseLab commented: "We at RaiseLab are thrilled to announce our recent partnership with Lagardère Travel Retail to spearhead the framing, experimentation, and deployment of five cutting-edge retail innovation projects. These experiments will be conducted first within their French Travel Essentials network, aligning with Lagardère Travel Retail's strategic push to accelerate digital innovation projects ahead of the 2024 Olympic Games and throughout 2024. Our role as innovative alliance builders is to guide the group through this experimentation journey, ensuring the successful rollout of projects across multiple countries and the entire network. We are very excited to embark on this collaborative venture with Lagardère Travel Retail's innovation teams and are appreciative of the confidence they've placed in us!"