The Frontier Awards Charter

For over forty years the Frontier Awards have existed, and thrived, as the industry they support has evolved, innovated, globalised and faced challenges in ways that would have been unimaginable at their inception back in 1985.

The key to the Awards’ enduring success is surprisingly simple. Open to all industry stakeholders, they offer a platform that acknowledges excellence and innovation from all areas of travel retail, with a rigorous judging process conducted by acknowledged independent experts that is completely free of any commercial influence. It is the judges’ gracious donation of time, energy and knowledge that ensures the Frontier Awards remain the most valued accolades in travel retail. A quick glance at the lists of winners from recent years will show company size is not a pre-determination to success – with start-up and specialist SMEs often mixing with global blue-chips.

The Guiding Rules and Principles of the Frontier Awards are as follows:

  1. Open to all companies active in travel retail – large and small

  2. The only way to enter the awards is to make a submission via the online portal. To maintain our complete impartiality, DFNI-Frontier will never put forward entrants to the Awards

  3. Entrants are required to submit substantial, qualitative evidence to support their submission.

  4. Independent judges are invited each year to join a new panel of seven judges. With substantial and wide individual experience, as a panel, they combine to provide real expertise across all areas of travel retail.

  5. All Judges sign an NDA, confirming they will neither share or otherwise seek to benefit from information contained within award entries.

  6. Judges have a two-week period to assess entries online in private, before convening to discuss their findings and to agree the winner for each award category.

  7. Judges are recused from assessing any category where their own company has entered to avoid direct conflict of interest. In these occasions, judges will not be permitted to see entries to that category.

  8. Judging is strictly independent and free of any external influence or commercial pressure. DFNI Frontier provides the platform, but will not, and cannot, seek to influence the judge’s decisions, nor will we permit any event sponsors to do the same. To keep this separation absolutely clear, sponsors of the event may not sponsor an award category they also wish to enter.