The past few years have been a golden age for travel retailing. The growth of low-cost travel and the increasingly commercial outlook of airport, station and roadside landlords have created huge opportunities for retailers to take advantage of captive shoppers with time to kill.

This hasn’t only benefited established retailers like WHSmith – although its travel division has been a star performer – but has also given new travel retailers, from food to fashion, an opportunity for growth at a time when it has been limited in more established locations.

But is this golden age coming to an end? The question was prompted by a couple of recent visits to the much-vaunted new St Pancras International development, where, if you have time on your hands, it might be worth seeking out the Monsoon, La Senza or Vodafone stores, or Marks & Spencer's store, which sells fashion as well as food.

Not many people seem to be checking them out. When I visited the M&S store last week, the till in the fashion area had a semi-permanent-looking notice directing non-existent shoppers to the food area, where four cashiers were awaiting customers eagerly. The store had four customers and, when I remarked to the cashier who served me that it seemed quiet, he responded: “Quiet? This is busy.”

M&S wasn’t alone – the Boots store boasts beauty counters befitting Oxford Street rather than a railway station but few shoppers, while the fashion retailers had no customers at all.

The problem is that the developers have built this retail development, known as The Circle, in a part of the station where, for the time being at least, no rail passengers ever pass through.

At least the turnover rent model of travel retail means that retailers will pay less if units don’t trade well – but they still have to pay staff and the bills. Heathrow has no additional flights or passengers with the opening of Terminal 5, but the retail spend – and cost base – is now spread across five terminals rather than four. Terminal 1 resembles a ghost town these days, but the retailers are still there, staffing and lighting shops with few customers passing through.

The growth of travel retail has been a big benefit for landlords and retailers alike. However, as the concept reaches maturity, landlords need to be careful to not become greedy.

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