"Sales Halved Due to Direct Impact of COVID-19" ... Duty-Free Shops All Closed for Seollal Holiday

[Asia Economy Reporter Jo In-kyung] Major duty-free shops such as Lotte, Shilla, and Shinsegae will close their downtown duty-free stores for one day on Lunar New Year's Day next week. With the sharp decline in arrivals and departures due to the spread of COVID-19, making sales virtually impossible to expect, they have decided to close for the Lunar New Year holiday for the first time in history.

According to the duty-free industry on the 6th, on Lunar New Year's Day, the 12th, all major downtown duty-free stores including Lotte Duty Free Myeongdong Main Store, World Tower Store, COEX Store, Busan Store, Jeju Store, Shilla Duty Free Seoul Store and Jeju Store, Shinsegae Duty Free Myeongdong Store, Gangnam Store, Busan Store, and Hyundai Department Store Duty Free Trade Center Store and Dongdaemun Store will be closed. However, the Incheon Airport Store will operate normally.

Duty-free shops have been operating year-round without holidays. However, as the skies closed due to the spread of COVID-19 last year and tourists sharply decreased, all duty-free shops were hit hard. As the COVID-19 situation prolonged, following the first-ever closure of downtown duty-free shops on Chuseok last year, they have decided to close again this Lunar New Year.

A duty-free industry official said, "Lunar New Year and Chuseok holidays used to be peak seasons with many foreign tourists, especially from China, but since COVID-19, tourists have drastically decreased, and with the Chinese Spring Festival holiday coinciding, even Chinese traders (daigou) have returned to their hometowns, making it impossible to expect visitors."

Another industry official explained, "The holiday period, which used to have the most foreign tourists, has now become the quietest time for stores," adding, "We judged that it is better to close downtown duty-free shops than to operate them."

According to the Korea Duty Free Shop Association, the number of domestic and foreign visitors to domestic duty-free shops plummeted by 90%, from about 4.02 million in 2019 to 420,000 in December last year. During the same period, the duty-free industry's sales also decreased by 48%, from 2.2847 trillion won to 1.1848 trillion won, marking the first negative growth since related statistics were made public in 2009.

Monthly Sales and Customer Traffic Status of Domestic Duty-Free Shops

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