Canadian airport sales overtake borders in 2007

Kevin Rozario

Print Article E-Mail Article E-Mail Author

Another bad year for the land border as sales fall 6%, but airports fare well, up 7.6%

Canadian border duty-free sales for 2007 fell 5.96% to C$150.4m ($148.9m), according to figures released by the Canadian Border Services Agency programme office. Airport sales have continued to grow, rising 7.6% to reach C$164.33m ($162.7m) to overtake the border business in 2007.

The airport business was buoyed by strong performances from perfumes and cosmetics, up 12.5% to pass the C$50m ($49.5m) barrier, jewellery and watches rising 65.7% to $6.8m, and food which leapt 71.2% to finish at C$14.6m ($14.45m). Of the core categories of beauty, tobacco and liquor, only liquor posted a decline, dropping 5.2% to C$38.8m ($38.42m).

Meanwhile the borders saw all the key categories declining, with liquor, the biggest category at C$57m ($56.46m), dropping by more than 8%. By region, the Pacific and Prairie borders bucked the downward trend with respective 12.8% and 3.3% increases to finish the year at C$21.1m ($20.9m) and C$10.4m ($10.3m). But the high-turnover crossings of Atlantic/Quebec and Ontario saw large declines of 7.4% to C$31.7m ($31.4m), and 10.1% to C$87.3m ($86.42m), respectively.