SEOUL, June 23 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s two leading duty-free operators started to sell duty-free products through local retail channels Tuesday, as the government has decided to temporarily permit such sales to help the pandemic-hit sector. Industry leader Lotte Duty started to release duty-free items, including foreign luxury brands, worth 10 billion won (US$8.3 [...]
SEOUL, May 27 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korean duty-free shops are struggling to cope with an industry-wide slump as flight suspensions and a subsequent fall in the number of customers have severely dented their sales amid the new coronavirus pandemic. With no imminent signs of business turnaround, duty-free operators have called for support measures from [...]
SEOUL, May 25 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korean duty-free stores saw their sales drop sharply below the 1 trillion-won (US$804 million) mark in April, feeling the pinch of the fallout from the new coronavirus, industry data showed Tuesday. Combined sales of local duty-free shops shrank 9.2 percent on-month to 986.7 billion won last month, according [...]
SEOUL, April 28 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korean duty-free stores saw their sales drop sharply in March due to the spread of the new coronavirus, industry data showed Tuesday. Combined sales of local duty-free shops shrank 1.3 percent on-month to 1.8 trillion won (US$1.5 billion) last month, according to the data from the Korea Duty [...]
SEOUL, April 8 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s two leading duty free operators have decided to give up their bids to operate stores at Incheon International Airport as the novel coronavirus has devastated business at the transportation hub, industry sources said Wednesday. The move by Hotel Lotte and Hotel Shilla comes as the business environment [...]
SEOUL, March 27 (Korea Bizwire) — Sales at South Korean duty-free stores nearly halved in February from a month earlier, hit hard by the spread of the new coronavirus, industry data showed Friday. Combined sales of local duty-free shops came to 1.1 trillion won (US$910 million) last month, down 45.5 percent from January, according to [...]
SEOUL, Feb. 4 (Korea Bizwire) — Sales at South Korean duty-free stores hit a new annual high of over 24 trillion won last year, industry data showed Tuesday, mainly on the back of more foreign customers, mainly Chinese visitors. The combined sales of local duty-free shops reached 24.86 trillion won (US$20.87 billion) in 2019, up [...]
SEOUL, Oct. 30 (Korea Bizwire) — Duty-free shops are shutting down as sales have plunged. Doosan Corp., the holding company of South Korean conglomerate Doosan Group, announced on Tuesday that it will shut down its duty-free shops located in Seoul’s Doosan Tower. This is the second time a duty-free store decided to withdraw from business [...]
SEOUL, Oct. 17 (Korea Bizwire) — Handbags accounted for more than a quarter of the goods carried by overseas travelers exceeding the duty-free limit over the past four years. According to the data submitted to Rep. Kim Doo-kwan from the Korea Customs Service, handbags accounted for 33,152 cases or 27.2 percent out of 122,500 cases [...]
SEJONG, Oct. 13 (Korea Bizwire) — In-flight duty-free sales rose between June and September this year, data showed Sunday, defying market expectations that they may decline after the opening of on-arrival duty-free shops. South Korea’s first on-arrival duty-free stores opened at Incheon International Airport in late May in a bid to reduce discomfort experienced by [...]