AVOLTA

Overview

Avolta is a global travel-experience company operating in travel retail and food and beverage. Its offer includes duty-free and duty-paid shops, restaurants, bars and hybrid concepts in travel settings such as airports, cruise ships and ferries, seaports, motorways and railway stations.[1][2]

The company operates in 70 countries, with nearly 5,100 outlets across about 1,000 locations, and reported 78,116 team members in 2025. Its stated mission is “Making Travelers Happier.” [2][3] In FY2025, Avolta reported IFRS turnover of CHF 13,983 million.[4] [1]+3

Products & services

Avolta’s offerings span travel-retail products and food and beverage (F&B) at travel locations. Its retail assortment includes perfumes and cosmetics, tobacco and related products, wine and spirits, luxury goods, and other goods such as electronics and publications; its F&B offering includes food, confectionery and catering. In FY2025, reported net sales were CHF 13,760 million: food, confectionery and catering represented about 42.8%, perfumes and cosmetics 18.6%, tobacco and related products 14.0%, wine and spirits 9.6%, luxury goods 5.3%, fuel 1.9% and other 7.8% (shares calculated from the reported category sales).[5]

The company’s formats include duty-free and duty-paid shops, restaurants, bars and hybrid concepts. Examples include the mind.body.soul wellness shop-in-shop, featuring nutritious food and products organized around health, relaxation and travel comfort, as well as Vista Corona F&B, Discovery Bar, Hungry Club by Dabiz Muñoz and Perth Street Market.[6]+2

Services include Club Avolta, a rewards program offering promotions and experiences across retail and F&B, and Reserve & Collect, which lets travelers order online and collect at the airport. Avolta also reports One-Stop Mobile Order & Pay, app integration across business lines and AI-powered personalization; Reserve & Collect was available at 188 locations in 46 countries in 2025.[9]+2 [5]+6

Geographic presence

In FY2025, Avolta operated in 70 countries, with about 5,100 outlets across roughly 1,000 locations. Its reported CORE turnover totaled CHF 13,720 million: EMEA CHF 7,240 million (52.8%), North America CHF 4,049 million (29.5%), Latin America CHF 1,595 million (11.6%) and Asia Pacific CHF 836 million (6.1%). Percentages are calculated from the reported regional and group totals.[12]+2

Avolta reported 78,116 employees at FY2025 year-end, including 35,644 in EMEA, 27,704 in North America, 7,885 in Latin America and 6,715 in Asia Pacific; 168 were reported under HQ.[15] Examples of operating locations include airports in New York, Atlanta, Copenhagen, Sofia, Abidjan, Amsterdam, Shanghai, Osaka, São Paulo and Santiago, as well as locations in Mexico.[16]+3 Avolta identifies Basel as its headquarters.[20] [12]+8

Business segments

Avolta’s officially reported operating segments are geographic rather than separate business lines: Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), North America, Latin America (LATAM), and Asia Pacific (APAC). The company says its risks and returns are primarily influenced by its locations and geographies, and presents segment information on that basis [21][22]. Across these regions, its activities include travel retail and food & beverage at airports, motorways, cruise liners and seaports, railway stations, and other travel locations [2].

For FY2025, reported segment turnover was CHF 7,503 million in EMEA (about 53.7% of the operating-segment total), CHF 4,049 million in North America (29.0%), CHF 1,595 million in LATAM (11.4%), and CHF 836 million in APAC (6.0%) [22]. Segment Core EBITDA was CHF 828 million in EMEA (about 55.5% of operating-segment EBITDA), CHF 475 million in North America (31.8%), CHF 149 million in LATAM (10.0%), and CHF 41 million in APAC (2.7%) [22]. These percentages are calculated from reported segment totals; Avolta separately reports negative Core EBITDA for “Other,” so the regional EBITDA shares use the operating-segment subtotal rather than consolidated Core EBITDA [22]. [21]+2

Company history

Avolta’s history combines two travel-sector lineages: Dufry traces its origins to Basel in 1865, while Autogrill was formed in Italy in 1977 by bringing together the motorway-catering businesses of Pavesi, Motta and Alemagna.[23][24] Dufry’s modern expansion accelerated after an Advent-led consortium acquired the business in 2004–05, followed by its 2005 Swiss stock-market listing.[25] It expanded its travel-retail footprint through the acquisition of Hudson Group in 2008, operations in five emerging markets in 2011, and the 2014 acquisition of The Nuance Group; in 2015 it acquired a 50.1% stake in World Duty Free.[26]+3

Dufry completed its merger with Hudson in 2020.[30] In 2022, it announced a combination with Autogrill, and completed the transfer of Edizione’s 50.3% stake in Autogrill in February 2023, bringing travel retail together with food-and-beverage operations.[31][32] Xavier Rossinyol became CEO in June 2022.[33] Dufry announced Avolta as the group’s unified brand in October 2023; shareholders approved the change of the company’s name from Dufry AG to Avolta AG the following month.[34]+2 [23]+13

Sources

• AVOLTA — Press release (2025 Y)
  7 citations

  [1][4][13][16][17][18][19]
• AVOLTA — Full financial report (2025 Y)
  9 citations

  [2][3][5][7][9][10][11][15][23]
• AVOLTA — Press release (2026 Q 1)[6]
• AVOLTA — Presentation (2025 Y)
  3 citations

  [8][12][14]
• careers.avoltaworld.com[20]
• AVOLTA — Partial financial report (2025 Y)[21][22]
• www.autogrill.com[24]
• www.avoltaworld.com[25]
• www.avoltaworld.com[26]
• www.avoltaworld.com[27]
• www.avoltaworld.com[28]
• www.avoltaworld.com[29]
• www.avoltaworld.com[30]
• www.avoltaworld.com[31]
• www.avoltaworld.com[32]
• www.avoltaworld.com[33]
• www.avoltaworld.com[34]
• AVOLTA — Full financial report (2023 Y)[35][36]