Canadian airport DF sales up 6% in 2018, land border sales flat

Duty free sales at Canadian airports reached $486.6 million in 2018, up 6.65% versus 2017, reports the Canada Border Services Agency.

Perfume, Cosmetics, Skincare, the number one category in Canada’s airports with 37.47% of sales, jumped 11.97% for the year. Number two category Alcohol (20% of sales) rose 3.3% in 2018. Tobacco, with 10% of sales, increased 10.63%.

 At Canada’s land border duty free stores, sales were flat in 2018 (+.43%) reaching $156.9 million.

Alcohol, by far the biggest category on the land border with 43.55% of sales, was also flat for the year (-.19%). Tobacco, the second most important category on the land border with 22.33% of sales, rose 3.72% in 2018. Perfume, Cosmetics, Skincare (13.43% of sales) slipped less than 1% for the year (-.87%).

 Duty Free sales in the Pacific land border region were up 4.99% for the year, to $24.54 million. Prairie, the smallest land border region with $8.47 million, dropped 2.49% for the year. Ontario land border sales slipped .94% in 2018, to $89.76 million. Atlantic-Quebec sales increased 1.73% last year to $33.88 million.