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Where, in an acutely sensitive regulatory environment, should the tobacco category be positioned in a duty free store?
When The Nuance Group opened its splendid new 650sq m tax & duty free store at Geneva International Airport earlier this month, it opted to place the entire tobacco category at the entrance of the store – displayed in what Nuance called a “breathtaking black and white setting”.
The logic is obvious. As many studies have proven, tobacco is not just a major drawcard in most duty free stores, it is also a tremendous fooftall (and therefore penetration) driver for other categories.
In Geneva that’s especially the case. The airport’s cigar assortment has long been a hallmark of the retail offer (it has been considerably enhanced here) and the cigarettes category is particularly important to the Geneva passenger profile.
But one wonders how that positioning sits with the approach likely to be adopted in English and Scottish duty free stores, where travel retailers have sought an exemption from proposed tobacco display restrictions that are being touted under the Health Bill. . . .
As we reported recently, The Tobacco Advertising and Promotion (Display) (England) Regulations 2010 propose wide-ranging limitations on the display and merchandising of tobacco products.
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中新网10月22日电 据澳门日报报道，澳门行政会发言人唐志坚表示，行政会基本完成修订吸烟的预防及限制制度法案的讨论，稍后将进一步检视条文，以及听取相关执行部门的意见，预计法案最迟可于今年12月上旬交到立法会审议。
中新网10月21日电 据澳门日报报道，为期两天的第三届两岸四地烟害防制交流研讨会20日在香港开幕，超过100人参加。与会者一致认为，面对烟草危害和威胁，必须采取一系列措施防控，包括促请政府增加烟草税及禁止烟草广告等。
The government of Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) Thursday announced that it has drawn up a bill proposing to increase the duty on cigarettes from 0.05 pataca (0.006 U.S. dollar) to 0.2 pataca (0.025 dollar) per stick, which is an increment of 300 percent.
Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) will amend its smoking-control law, banning indoor smoking in all public places, said Lei Chin Ion, director of the SAR's Health Bureau, on Sunday.
Aside from the banning of indoor smoking, new measures such as fixed penalty and image of warning posted on cigarette package will be adopted in the new law, said Lei, on the sideline of local "World No Tobacco Day" campaign.
However if the Macao authorities are truly sincere about reducing smoking, they should follow the lead of some states in the U.S. including Colorado and Illinois, [though not yet Nevada, home of Las Vegas] by imposing a ban on smoking inside casinos. When I visited several properties in Macao a couple of weeks ago, including gambling joints owned by local kingpin Stanley Ho, and big boys of Vegas Sheldon Adelson and Steve Wynn as well as MGM Mirage, I saw people puffing at virtually every baccarat table. It felt like a scene from the original 1960 film, Ocean's Eleven. . . .
However as my colleague Nanette Byrnes and I wrote in a BusinessWeek cover story last week, falling rates of smoking in the U.S. is the big reason Philip Morris International is making an aggressive push into emerging markets where the anti smoking lobbies are less powerful than at home. One of its biggest potential markets is China, where last year it got a license to produce Marlboros.
Japan Tobacco Inc. said yesterday it would close three domestic cigarette factories due to a declining smoking rate as it announced net profit nearly halved in the last financial year.
Net profit in the year to March fell 48.3 percent to 123.4 billion yen (1.3 billion dollars) from 238.7 billion yen, with operating profit falling 15.5 percent to 363.81 billion yen, the former government monopoly said.
Sales hit a record of 6.83 trillion yen, up 6.6 percent from the previous year, thanks to higher tobacco sales volume overseas and contribution from Britain's Gallaher, which JT bought in 2007 for 19 billion dollars.
It was also proposed in the bill that duty on tobacco and cigars be raised respectively from 20 patacas (2.5 dollar) to 80 patacas (10 dollar) per kilogram and from 70 patacas (8.9 dollar) to 280 patacas (35.4 dollar).
Macau has announced that it has drawn up a bill proposing to increase the duty on cigarettes by 300 per cent.
The bill "has been discussed by the SAR's Executive Council, and will be submitted to the Legislative Assembly for review and a vote on it through emergency procedure," according to a press release from the Macau government's Information Bureau.
A similar move has already been taken by Hong Kong's government
Four parcels containing a substantial amount of hand rolling tobacco (HRT), from Macau and mainland, were seized last week at London Stansted Airport, after smugglers attempted to hide it in rolls of fabric and tubes of baseballs, according to Hearts News agency.
The first seizure of an estimated 80 kilos of HRT was discovered in two parcels of what appeared to be rolls of fabric, which originated from Macau.
United Kingdom Border Agency (UKBA) officers found that the smugglers had carefully stuffed rolled up pieces of fabric into the end of each roll to disguise the fact that they were hollow and contained illicit tobacco.
The second seizure from China arrived at the Essex airport on the same day and was found in a consignment labelled as baseballs.
A health association in Macao has expressed their hope that the Tobacco Control Act be put into legislative procedure as soon as possible, so as to strengthen local smoking control, the Macao Daily Times reported on Sunday.
The legislation of the Tobacco Control Act can control smoking in public places and also significantly reduce the excuses of people who wanted to quit smoking, the daily quoted Au Ka Fai, the director-general of the Smoke-Quitting and Health Care Association, as saying.
Au said Macao's current tobacco tariff has been too low, and even if it was increased a tenfold, will still be lower than that of the neighboring cities.
Director General of the local Health Association, Ao Ka Fai, said yesterday to the media that he hoped the administrative department would implement the smoking controls as quickly as possible, as reported by TDM.
At the sidelines of a Health Day Carnival, the director general said that he wants the government to set up the smoke-related regulations, smoke-free area restrictions as well as anti-smoking education.
“第二届两岸四地烟害防制交流讨论会”10 月21－22日在京召开。卫生部部长陈竺出席开幕式表示：目前，上海、广州、杭州、青岛等城市，正在按照《世界卫生组织烟草控制框架公约》的精神，积极修订公共场所禁止吸烟的法规，争创“无烟世博”、“无烟亚运”或健康城市。
A written interpellation by lawmaker Leong Iok Wa yesterday said the government did not introduce any measures to respond to the tobacco control treaty which has been in place in Macau since 2006.
The government has recently revised the consumption tax regulations in order to exempt alcohol and fuel levies for local businesses.
However, the lawmaker said the government did not propose a levy increase for tobacco and tobacco products at the same time, but told the Legislative Assembly last week that such revision would be submitted for deliberation along with a string of anti smoking measures in the last quarter of the year.
This legislative orientation, Ms Leong added, was "difficult to understand" as The World Health Organisation Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) has already been applied to Macau for two years.
Macao's Health Bureau (HB) will launch a month-long consultation period in September on its tobacco law amendment bill, local media reported Monday.
The Macao Post Daily quoted HB sources as saying that the changes will include a steep increase in the tobacco tax, stricter restrictions on tobacco ads, starkly visible health warnings on cigarette packets, and an extension of non-smoking areas.