Along with the continuing efforts to provide more and more services to its customers, Bahrain Duty Free opens the Arsenal’s flagship corner for its customers Arsenal and football fans, providing a wide variety of Arsenal Club products.

Arsenal fans can request T-shirts bearing names of any of the Arsenal players and their numbers of choice, or own names, or the names of their friends. The shirts of their choice will be ready within minutes, and in the original style/font of the club.

Other Club + National teams shirts will also be added, to offer a wider range to the varied customers of BDFS.

On this occasion, Steve O’Connor, the General Manager of Bahrain Duty Free Shop Complex stated “We are delighted to offer to Arsenal fans, the commercial products of the team in line with the framework of our ongoing and relentless effort to meet our customers’ needs”

“Bahrain Duty Free is committed to providing the best for the passengers, constantly growing in number, and we are working towards further improvement of our services and retail business market”. Added Mr. O’Connor.

Celebrating Valentine's Day with Bahrain Duty Free will be an exciting event this year and with a special flavour. Red roses will be distributed to both arriving and departing female passengers (whilst stock last) at Bahrain International Airport. In additional, a wide variety of gifts are offered when buying directly at the airport or through the company’s website www.bdutyfree.com

Valentine's Day is a marvellous occasion and an opportunity to exchange gifts and souvenirs with family, friends and the loved ones.

An American National Mr. Thomas Hora won the 4 options 1 winner - Lexus from Bahrain Duty Free Raffle Draw. Ms. Emily a passenger drew the lucky ticket No. 0492.

Pictured left to right: Hassan (Sales Assistant), Ahmed (Marketing), Emonn Carty (Head of Retail), Emily (Passenger), Ismail Akbar (EGM of Toyota & Lexus), Thuraya (Marketing), Badreya (Sales Assistant).

Bahrain Duty Free has recently held its annual seminar “Going Forward” for its staff under the slogan "Dare to Care", at the Banyan Tree Hotels and Resorts which was held over 4 days.

At the outset Steve O'Connor, the General Manager of the company, welcomed the audience and expressed his appreciation for their efforts, dedication and sense of responsibility, towards the success of the business, and he went on to highlight the aims of the seminar, which is to activate the internal communication skills between the staff of the company and to enhance closer personal interaction and to stress the spirit of one team. He said that he was pleased with the outstanding results achieved by Bahrain Duty Free during the last year. He said that theme of the conference was “Dare to Care” and we need to build on the success and continue to provide excellent customer service, products, prices and promotions, to promote Bahrain Duty Free and Bahrain as the destination of choice.

Over the four days the staff of each shift performed short light hearted “fun” acts regarding the right type of customer service as well as the wrong type of customer service. The performances won the admiration of all the audience.

The seminar was built on principle of “Learning by Practice “it comprised of two training programs . The first was about teamwork while the second was about customer service. The two programs were conducted in the form of interactive modules that presented the subject matter in a visual form rather than lecturing.

It is also noteworthy that the Bahrain Duty Free has invested heavily in the training and human resource development. The Human Resources Department provided 28,229 training hours for the employees by the end of December 2009. The programs have been carried out at the company’s subsidiary Bahrain International Retail Development Centre (BIRD) as well as at other local educational institutions in Bahrain and other programs outside the Kingdom.

BAHRAIN. Bahrain Duty Free announced today that its website (www.bdutyfree.com) generated a record 10 million hits during 2009.

General Manager Steve O’Connor said: “This has been a fantastic success with online duty free sales contributing significantly to overall sales performance in 2009. Given, our promotion of the site has been low key while we link the website to our inventory system, this has been a very positive vote of confidence in the development of our web service for our customers.”

O’Connor said that online retailing is an important growth area for the company. “We are already expanding the department to support the expected growth and at the same time continuing to develop and add more services and offers to excite the web user,” he said, citing services such as flower selling online (with delivery in Bahrain), among other new offers.

Bahrain Duty Free is also developing an online link with Jashamal Books, a duty free and downtown retailer.

“We are linking their online website inventory to ours, allowing Bahrain Duty Free to offer a greater range to our customers,” O’Connor said. “They can purchase through us and collect at the airport duty free shop.”

Certainly a major benefit of online is gaining greater access and exposure to our customers, which can only be good.

[<>NOTE: Bahrain Duty Free is one of 100 travel retail websites independently assessed in The Moodie 100 Travel Retail Website Survey. The survey, produced by The Moodie Report Research & Analysis Manager Jessica Lana will be published later this month at a cost of €375. Please contact Jessica Lana at Jessica.Lana@TheMoodieReport.com for details.

In line with its policy of motivating staff and encouraging them to exert best efforts in performing their duties and maintaining a clean and absence attendance record, Bahrain Duty Free carried out recently a draw on the names of its staff who had excellent record of performance in customer service and those who enjoyed a clean record a clean record of attendance during the last quarter of 2009.

The Customer Service Award was won by S. Hussain Ali Hashim while the Best Attendance Award was won by Mohsen Hassan.

On this occasion, Adel Redha Head of Human Resources and Marketing Stated "Bahrain Duty Free attaches great importance to human resources which is the most important factor in achieving our  goals, and improving productivity. He praised the outstanding efforts of the these employees and urged all the staff to move forward in improving their performance to their maximum potential and to make further efforts in order to achieve excellence.

Adel also touched on the staff 4 day seminar that was held in the Banyan Tree in January as going forward , where Bahrain Duty Free stated its focus on developing all its staff with our 440 staff attending this “ Going forward “ training and activity days.

Bahrain Duty Free has announced the winner of its Jet Ski Raffle Draw, for Yamaha Jet Ski FX Cruiser SHO. The lucky winner was the holder of ticket No. 0238, Mr. William Spencer, a Canadian national.

40% of the ticket were bought through Bahrain Duty Free web site www.bdutyfree.com

The draw took place recently in the departure area at the Bahrain International Airport.
Mr. Adel Redha, Head of HR & Marketing commented “This is a promotional campaign entertain and excite the customer and traveler.”
 Mr. Redha concluded his statement by saying “We endeavour to provide our customers using Bahrain International Airport, excitement and opportunities to win exotic prizes, while providing them at the same time with a wide range of branded international and local products that creates a sense of place while offering well recognized brands the communicate quality and value of exceptional prices.”

As a Part of its strategy in the ongoing development of customer services in the context of its commitment to provide excellent services, Bahrain Duty Free has signed an agreement with Singapore Flower to provide a new service that allows our customers to buy flowers through the website of the company www.bdutyfree.com

And this service is available to travelers arriving at and departing from the Kingdom and it provides delivery service of flowers locally to all areas in Bahrain.

On this occasion, Adel Reda, Head of HR & Marketing at Bahrain Duty Free stated’ “Buying Flower Online Service is a new service we are announcing today. It provides a new choice for our customers, in line with our strategy to provide a greater degree of ease and convenience to customers. We are confident that this partnership between us and Singapore Flower is another achievement for the benefit of our customers”

Dalliah Roslan the owner of Singapore Flower commented “We at Singapore Flower would like to thank Bahrain Duty Free for giving us the opportunity of collaborating with them on their recent online ordering system. This venture is an exciting step forward, which will greatly benefit customers as they can now order flowers online for their loved ones quickly and efficiently. At Singapore Flower we pride ourselves on our fresh and beautiful flowers and customers can rest assured that they will always receive the best products and service possible."

It is also notable that Bahrain Duty Free has announced in early December of 2008 introduction of its new service "Shopping online” which is the first of its kind in the Middle East.

In line with the policy of Bahrain Duty Free in reflecting integrative approach to support Bahrain Team for the final round of world cup, the Bahrain Duty staff at airport will wear bright red T-shirt’s in solidatory with the Bahrain team, to coincide with the match.

On this occasion, Mr. Adel Reda, Head of Human Resources and Marketing, said “we are pleased and excited to take this initiative, based on our collective responsibility in supporting the national team in international forums and to raise the flag of the Kingdom of Bahrain.

Bahrain Duty Free celebrated recently its 18th anniversary since its establishment in 1991. Celebrations were held at the head office, in Juffair, aiming to enhance the spirit of cooperation and teamwork which the company encourages amongst its staff through various company events and activities.

 On this occasion Steve O’Connor, General Manager, stated “We celebrate another successfully year full of achievements made possible through the commitment, hard work and contributions made by our various departments. We are very proud of our accomplishment through the years and acknowledge the contribution and support of every employee (past and present), without whom this success would not have been possible.”