Chinese tourists' duty-free shopping spree is shifting from South Korea to Japan.
According to Yonhap News, the sales at South Korea’s duty-free stores in the first half of this year were approximately 7.4 trillion won (USD 5.5 billion), representing an increase of nearly 13.8% compared to the same period last year.
While this year-on-year growth appears strong, last year's performance was the worst in recent years for the South Korean market.
Due to continuous operating losses from Q3 last year to Q1 this year, Lotte Duty-Free, South Korea's leading retailer, announced in June that it has entered an emergency state of operation. The company plans to make structural improvements, implement employee restructuring, reduce executive salaries by 20%, and introduce a "voluntary retirement" program.
In contrast to the sluggish South Korea market, Japan's duty-free sector is thriving. Since the beginning of this year, the depreciation of the yen has attracted a large influx of travelers.
In July, the total number of visitors to Japan reached 3.2925 million, setting a new record for the highest monthly figure in history.
Mainland China became the largest source of tourists to Japan, with 776,500 people, accounting for over one-fifth (23.5%) of the total.
In the first seven months of this year, Japan's cumulative duty-free sales reached 397.8 billion yen (USD 2.74 billion), already surpassing the total sales for all of 2023 (348.4 billion yen).
