The marketing campaign of Budapest Airport called "Love Candy" was nominated for the finals of this year's competition of the prestigious international journal Frontier Magazine where alongside London Heathrow and Seoul Incheon International of South Korea who will fight for the first prize in October. This also indicates that Budapest Airport offers a retail and F&B selection to passengers this summer which is truly world class.


Reconstruction and development projects completed over the winter and spring have yielded their results by the summer travel season at Budapest Airport. By now, no less than 47 percent of commercial areas in the SkyCourt of almost six thousand square meters combined were re-modeled. It was crucial to have everything completed by the summer peak so that passengers could enjoy the services provided by significantly reinvigorated retail and F&B areas.

One of the hits of the summer at the airport - primarily for ladies - was the opening of the Spanish Desigual fashion store in SkyCourt. The brand putting out mainly colorful happy dresses, shoes, bags, and accessories intended for young people entered Hungary a few years ago. Their shop at the airport welcomes customers on 62 square meters, and has already become quite popular: passengers most of the time do find the time to browse their merchandise before departure particularly during summer sales.

On the left-hand-side mezzanine of SkyCourt, in one of the prime locations offering a great view of the airfield, a special sports bar - O'Learys - was opened before Euro '16. Guests here can primarily follow sports events around the world, as they can watch domestic and foreign sports channels on 25 screens. O'Learys is a new brand in domestic F&B, joining other popular Irish places, offering a sporty vibe as well as a wide selection of beer and hamburgers on 270 square meters.

Tashba opened at a similar spot in the spring in the middle of SkyCourt on the ground floor. The name of the restaurant is an acronym resulting from combining the Spanish word 'tapas', the Japanese 'sushi', and the word 'bar'. 'Tapas', increasingly popular in Hungary, similarly to the Italian 'antipasti' means a variety of mostly cold bits to be consumed as a starter which the Spanish usually take with a nice glass of Rioja wine or as an appetizer before an extensive evening meal. Sushi has been around for quite some time in Hungary and at the airport too, and Tashba is more and more popular due to its exclusive view as well as the masterly performance of its chef.

This year Swarowski welcomes passengers at a new place with an independent branded store. The Innsbruck-based company known for its jewelry, shiny room décor items, and polished crystals opened its 38-square-meter unit in the passageway leading to the boarding gates of Terminal 2A. The specialized 'BL watch island' occupying an area of the same size in the boarding zone of Terminal 2B is a novelty mainly for Non-Schengen passengers; people about to fly to Canada, Qatar, Dubai, Russia, or Turkey can pick up international brands including Tissot, Longines, Oris, Certina, Police, Swatch, or Lacoste.

The engine of airport retail is Hungarian Duty Free established by Hamburg-based Heinemann attracting passengers with its traditional duty-free unit on 1500 square meters and special promotions as well as branded stores such as Tommy Hilfiger, Mont Blanc, Longchamp, or Hugo Boss. Heinemann also operates the only Victoria's Secret boutique in Hungary at the airport.

"This year we took a major step in renewing our retail and F&B offer, which is something we aim to keep up to date and relevant continuously," said Budapest Airport chief commercial officer Kam Jandu. He added, "We managed to increase the numbers of transactions in all outlets, even more so than the passenger growth numbers meaning that passengers are more satisfied than ever as we respond to changing trends in fashion, retail, or gastronomy. One of the objectives of our BUD:Shopping promotion started this year was to make passengers realize that it is worth coming to the airport earlier and take the stress out of travel, during which they would have time for browsing in quite pleasant circumstances amongst world-class products, often unique to the airport representing excellent value."