JAPAN. Pressure has resurfaced for the establishment of airport duty free Arrivals shops, according to a report in respected media The Japan Times.
The online version of the title claimed that Japan’s Transport Ministry will recommend opening duty free Arrivals shops as part of tax system reforms for fiscal 2017.
Quoting unnamed sources, the report said the ministry has received requests for Arrivals shops from newly privatised Sendai International Airport and Kansai International Airport in Osaka.
The prospect of duty free shopping on arrival has surfaced many times down the years, notably during the height of the Japanese outbound travel boom from 1966 till the late 1980s. Local duty free retailers and airports have often complained that overseas retailers were benefiting from high off-shore spending to the disadvantage of Japanese companies. But resistance from Japanese domestic market retailers always stopped any progress.
That may be about to change. The report commented: “The ministry judged that overseas travel has become so common that duty free shops in immigration areas would no longer cause a sense of unfairness among the public, according to the sources.”
It said that Sendai International Airport Co aims to increase earnings by boosting its retail offer, notably on arrival, and thus reduce landing fees to encourage airlines to use the airport.
With China set for a big expansion of Arrivals duty free shopping through China Duty Free Group (and a related extension of downtown post-Arrivals duty free retail), the Japanese move, if enacted, could be a potential game changer (positive and negative respectively) for travel retailers at home and abroad.
