The New Zealand Customs Service launched a campaign today to remind travellers that the inbound tobacco allowance drops from 200 to 50 this November.

 

Customs Comptroller Carolyn Tremain says travellers should start to see advertising in airports and inflight magazines this week, alerting them to the November reduction in the duty free tobacco arrivals allowance.

 

She said: “From 1 November the duty free limit for tobacco brought into New Zealand drops from 200 to 50 cigarettes or 50 grams of tobacco products. Customs is running an awareness campaign until the end of the peak summer holiday period to inform travellers of the reduction in the tobacco allowance.

 

“From 1 November anyone exceeding the 50 cigarettes or 50 grams limit will have to pay duty and GST on the excess tobacco they are carrying, or abandon the excess by placing it in a tobacco amnesty bin,” she says.

 

“The gift concession will also disappear, meaning anyone sent tobacco from overseas will have to pay duty and GST on the entire amount when it arrives.”

 

 

Auckland Airport.

 

NZ ‘ALIGNING WITH AUSTRALIA’

The New Zealand Customs Service adds that the drop in the duty free limit aligns New Zealand with Australia’s duty free tobacco allowance, and is ‘another step towards reducing the harm caused by smoking’.

 

The New Zealand Government made the announcement it is reducing its duty free allowance from 200 to 50 cigarettes from November 1 last May and Auckland Airport acknowledged the move. At that time, the airport estimated that the potential full year impact of reducing the inbound duty free allowance from 200 cigarettes to 50 could reduce the company’s revenue by between $7 million to $8 million.”

 

Of course, this is only an estimate and as noted at the time, it seems highly likely that customer penetration levels in Auckland’s two competing arrivals shop operations of DFS Group and JR/Duty Free will fall once tobacco allowances are reduced, with a knock on negative impact on impulse purchasing by customers drawn mainly to these shops by tobacco products. Shops outside New Zealand selling to passengers travelling to the country will hopefully also tell passengers about this new allowance reduction.

 

This allowance reduction will also be an issue for LS travel retail, which obviously operates smaller airport duty free shop operations in New Zealand at Dunedin, Wellington and Hamilton airports.