relied on Chinese travellers<\/a> for 70 per cent of its duty-free sales before Covid-19. Around 5 million visitors from China arrived in the country during the first 11 months of 2025, a recovery to 92.3 per cent of 2019 levels.<\/p>\nBut duty-free sales not only failed to rebound; they actually fell to levels last seen in 2015. Sales at South Korea\u2019s duty-free shops declined 12 per cent year on year to US$80.6 billion between January and November last year, according to the Korea Duty-Free Shops Association.<\/p>\n
In a sign of the times, two of the country\u2019s duty-free retail giants \u2013 Shilla Duty Free and Shinsegae Duty Free \u2013 gave up parts of their concessions at Incheon International Airport in September and October, citing sluggish sales and soaring rental fees. The licences were once among the most coveted assets in the country\u2019s travel retail sector.<\/p>\n
\u201cSouth Korea is one of the clearest examples of a duty-free market that has been structurally hurt,\u201d said Subramania Bhatt, CEO of the travel marketing and technology firm China Trading Desk. \u201cThe old model of suitcase shopping and tour bus spending [by Chinese travellers] is structurally weaker.\u201d<\/p>\n
Visits to duty-free stores are often included in the itineraries of Chinese group tours, making shopping almost mandatory. But all-inclusive tours are losing appeal as China\u2019s travellers \u2013 especially the younger generation \u2013 increasingly venture abroad independently, allowing them to focus more on the local culture and niche brands.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chinese tourist numbers are recovering across Asia after a pandemic-era contraction, buoyed by the expansion of visa-free policies…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":232595,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[138054,4177,138,138058,607,51544,2815,138061,138056,219,138055,138060,1759,30760,111,139,69,138059,138057,4790],"class_list":{"0":"post-232594","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-avolta","9":"tag-beijing","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-catherine-lim","12":"tag-china","13":"tag-chinese-tourists","14":"tag-covid-19","15":"tag-daigou","16":"tag-duty-free-retailers","17":"tag-economy","18":"tag-hainan-province","19":"tag-incheon-international-airport","20":"tag-japan","21":"tag-kpmg","22":"tag-new-zealand","23":"tag-newzealand","24":"tag-nz","25":"tag-shilla-duty-free","26":"tag-shinsegae-duty-free","27":"tag-south-korea"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232594\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/232595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}