"COVID-19 Impact" Last Year's Duty-Free Store Sales 15.5 Trillion Won... 38% Sharp Decline

[Asia Economy Reporter Yuri Kim] Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, domestic duty-free shop sales in South Korea plummeted by 38% last year.

According to the Korea Duty Free Shop Association on the 1st, last year's duty-free shop sales amounted to 15.5052 trillion KRW, a 37.63% decrease compared to 24.8586 trillion KRW the previous year. As outbound travel by domestic residents became difficult, the proportion of sales to foreigners rose to 94.07%. In 2019, the proportion of sales to foreigners was around 83%.

The number of visitors also sharply declined. Last year, duty-free shop visitors totaled 10,669,676, which was only 22% of the 48,443,510 visitors in 2019. The ratio of domestic to foreign visitors was 7 to 3.

Sales in December last year were 1.1849 trillion KRW, a 16.53% decrease compared to 1.4196 trillion KRW in the previous month.

Domestic duty-free shop sales have continuously increased from 3.8522 trillion KRW in 2009 to surpass 10 trillion KRW in 2016 and 20 trillion KRW in 2019. However, last year, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the sharp decline in international travel worldwide, sales suffered a significant blow.

An industry official said, "Due to COVID-19, international travel has become difficult, causing severe damage to the duty-free industry," and added, "Reflecting the desperate reality of the duty-free industry, urgent government support such as reductions in license fees is needed."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.