TFWA C-Suite: The Innovator’s Agenda — In Conversation with Lagardère Travel Retail

In this edition of TFWA C-Suite: The Innovator’s Agenda, we sit down with Qihua Wang, Executive Vice President Strategy & AI at Lagardère Travel Retail, to explore the evolving role of AI in travel retail and what it really means for the industry today. In this conversation, Qihua Wang takes a clear and pragmatic look at the state of AI in 2026. Moving beyond buzzwords and headlines, she explores how AI has evolved from chatbots to more autonomous agentic systems—what progress is real, what remains hype, and what genuinely matters for travel retail today. Drawing on concrete AI use cases and hands on industry experience, the session will examine where AI can truly create value, where its limits still lie, and the key organizational, operational, and strategic barriers travel retail players must overcome to turn AI from promise into real impact.