Travel retail spirits sales grew by 10% in 2011, while wine sales remained constant, according to Duty Free/Travel Retail Summary Report 2012 by International Wine & Spirit Research (IWSR), a UK-based provider of data on wine, spirits and ready-to-drinks.

According to the report, the liquor sales at travel retail level were increased by 7% to 27.5 million cases in 2011.

Asia-Pacific and Americas topped the list in terms of growth, where both wines and spirits sales at travel retail were increased by 38.2% to over five million cases at each region, as against sales growth of 36.8% in 2010.

Though, sales in Japan were hit due to earthquake in March 2011, sales from the Chinese travellers helped the growth in Asian markets, which increased by 11.8%.

Americas also accounted for 11.8% growth in sales, which was mainly due to increased sales of wines and spirits in North America, Latin America and Caribbean cruise sector.

Among all the duty free alcohol sales, spirits accounted for 72.6%, primarily due to fast growth of premium and super-premium spirits category, which was double when compared to the growth of standard spirits.

Though wine sales were constant globally, strong growth was reported in still light wine sales in Asia and Africa in 2011.

However, this growth was not enough as Europe accounts for more than 75% of all the travel retail wines sales and its sales for 2011 were down compared to that in 2010.