Lotte Duty Free Secures Gimpo Airport Following Gimhae... "Expectations for With Corona"

Ahead of the Chuseok holiday, the spread of COVID-19 is accelerating mainly in Seoul and the metropolitan area. On the 16th, the domestic terminal of Gimpo Airport in Gangseo-gu, Seoul, was crowded with passengers. Photo by Mun Ho-nam munonam@

[Asia Economy Reporter Yuri Kim] Lotte Duty Free has been selected as the final candidate for the duty-free shop license operator at the Gimpo International Airport departure hall. Following the retention of the Gimhae Airport duty-free shop, it has also secured the existing operating rights at Gimpo Airport duty-free shop.

On the 28th, Lotte Duty Free announced, "We have been selected as the final candidate for the Gimpo Airport departure hall duty-free shop (DF1) license operator," adding, "We will do our best in the scheduled Korea Customs Service review." They continued, "In the era of phased daily recovery (With Corona), we will make every effort to contribute to the revival of South Korea's tourism industry as a global duty-free operator."

The bidding target, DF1, is a 732.2㎡ area where cosmetics, perfumes, and other items are sold. The expected annual sales are around 71.4 billion KRW. Although the scale is not large, it is a symbolic location as a Seoul-area airport duty-free shop with many international routes mainly between Japan, China, and Taiwan. For these reasons, the 'Big 3' large corporations?Lotte Duty Free, Shilla Duty Free, and Shinsegae Duty Free?participated in this bid.

Lotte Duty Free, as the existing operator, showed a strong determination to retain the area. Since opening the Gimpo Airport store in 1999 as the first private operator, Lotte Duty Free reopened the Gimpo Airport store in 2010 through the acquisition of AK Duty Free and has continued operations to this day.