NEWS23 August 2010
UK— BAA, the owner and operator of Heathrow Airport, has disputed the findings of a mystery shopping survey that found the London airport offered the worst tax free-discounts in Europe, claiming that the study is “misleading and incorrect”.
The study was commissioned earlier this month by shopping comparison website Kelkoo and produced by the Centre for Retail Research. It focused on tax-free shopping for travellers journeying within the EU. The results claimed that shoppers at Heathrow were offered the lowest discounts compared to nine other airports.
However, BAA has rebuffed the results of the study. A spokesman told Research: “We are extremely disappointed by the findings from the latest Kelkoo report into airport prices – and perplexed as to how they reached these conclusions which are both misleading and incorrect.”
The airport operator said that the Kelkoo data was “based on inaccurate prices at Heathrow and European airport prices at a false exchange rate”. Furthermore, BAA said that the report “includes products Heathrow does not sell”.
During the mystery shopping exercise, shoppers bought a “representative basket” of 22 products from five categories in 10 European airports, including Heathrow, Lyon, Paris, Rome, Berlin and Barcelona.
Kelkoo’s results found that shoppers at Heathrow achieved a saving of 3.1% compared to regular high street prices, while other airports offered savings of as much as 11.9%. BAA says it rejects these figures.