Heathrow Shop Apologizes for Anti-Chinese ‘Discrimination’

A duty-free shop at London’s Heathrow Airport has apologized for allegedly treating Chinese customers unfairly during a recent promotional campaign.

World Duty Free Group, which runs eight stores at the airport, reportedly offered a voucher for customers who spent a certain amount of money, but raised the required amount only for Chinese customers.

World Duty Free offered “sincere apologies” on its Weibo (link in Chinese) social media account Tuesday and said that “after close self-examination and having made further investigations, we have taken urgent steps to correct the implementation of this promotion going forward.”

The response came after a person claiming to be a Chinese student who works part-time at a World Duty Free store at Heathrow’s Terminal 2 published a Weibo post (link in Chinese) that was shared more than 87,000 times and triggered outcry against the store operator on social media.

The store had offered a voucher of 20% on a next-time purchase to any shopper whose bill exceeded 250 pounds ($346), according to the worker’s blog post.

However, a colleague refused to grant a Chinese customer the voucher, though that customer’s bill was around 300 pounds.

“Because she’s Chinese, (she) needs to spend 1,000 pounds to get voucher,” the cashier told the student worker, according to his post. The worker claimed the exception for Chinese customers was later confirmed by the store manager, who said it was made specifically for Chinese customers, a claim that was not independently verified.

“As a global company we are committed to treating all our customers with respect and in a consistent and fair way,” the duty-free shop said in its statement Tuesday.

Chinese tourists are increasingly big spenders across the world. The U.K. has become a more popular destination after an easing of some visa restrictions and a depreciation of the pound after the Brexit vote in 2016. During the first nine months of 2017, visits from China grew by 33% while spending surged 48%, according to U.K. tourism authority VisitBritain.

The duty-free incident comes when Chinese are celebrating the week-long Lunar New Year holiday, “a prime time for travel for the Chinese, and the U.K. is gearing up to host some of the largest celebrations outside Asia,” according to a recent VisitBritain report.

Contact reporter Coco Feng (renkefeng@caixin.com)