Registration for APTRA’s Northeast Asia Forum opens

APTRA has opened registration for the Northeast Asia Forum, to be held at the Kowloon Shangri-La hotel in Hong Kong, December 3-5, 2025, in collaboration with the Airport Authority Hong Kong and Hong Kong International Airport as platinum host partners.  

Avolta and King Power are confirmed as gold partners, while Pernod Ricard is the lead drinks partner.  Research partners include China Trading Desk and m1nd-set.

Reflecting the conference theme ‘The Great Travel Retail Reset’, the keynote address will be presented by Kevin Roche. Renowned for his insight and analysis of consumer behavior, built from a 50-year career as a leader across almost every retail channel and formats.

Roche has created one-of-a-kind retail, lifestyle and hospitality destinations for some of the world’s leading brands, retail groups, and commercial real estate executives. His experience includes 15 years at LVMH’s Selective Retailing Group as President of Marketing and Senior Vice President of Design and Construction for both DFS Group and Le Bon Marché Paris.  From 2021 to 2025 Roche served as Senior Advisor to the Chairman, CEO and Executive Vice President of Moët Hennessy.  

“I’m delighted to speak at this important event, and I hope to provide the travel retail industry with an alternative perspective on the challenges it faces in identifying, understanding and addressing the enormous shifts we are seeing in shopper behavior, especially in Northeast Asia,” Roche said.  

“If one lifestyle change has accelerated in the last ten-plus years, affecting how consumers interface with most if not all forms of travel, retailing, hospitality, workplace, and entertainment industries, it is the ‘blurring of the lines’ across everything. All modern consumer experiences have become blurred. We live in a world of multi-tasking and multi-experiencing in real time. Traditional retailing is a player in a very new game where there are no rules defining what is retail vs hospitality vs entertainment vs leisure time vs workplace. We buy when we’re inspired, transacting those purchases from the palm of our hand.”

Sunil Tuli, APTRA President and Group Chief Executive, King Power Group (Hong Kong), commented, “We are delighted to welcome Kevin Roche to join us at the APTRA Northeast Asia Forum where our focus is to address post-COVID challenges in the region, particularly the industry’s reset and the urgent need to reconnect with evolving consumer expectations.

“Despite travel’s recovery, there is a widening gap between travel retail’s offer and what travelers want, as consumer behavior and the impact of social media have shifted across all generations. We must move beyond transactional retail by understanding shopper emotional and experiential motivations, and we value Kevin’s expertise in helping us address these issues with new, blended consumer-centric retail strategies.”

The APTRA Northeast Asia Forum will include detailed consumer research and insights from industry experts including China Trading Desk and m1nd-set. Panel discussions will explore individual category dynamics with updates from key markets including China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan.

Delegate tickets are priced at US$600 to include the full day of plenary sessions on December 4, with evening receptions on December 3 and 4, and a boat trip and lunch on Po Toi Island on December 5.

APTRA has negotiated preferential rates at the conference venue, the Kowloon Shangri-La hotel. For further details please email Rajiv Malhotra, APTRA General Manager, Events & Membership: rajiv.malhotra@aptra.asia

A range of sponsorship opportunities is available and interested parties are invited to contact Anne Kavanagh, APTRA Executive Director: anne.kavanagh@aptra.asia