SOUTH KOREA. The highly regarded Gil-han Lee has left his position as Co-President of HDC Shilla.
Lee was formerly Senior Managing Director, Merchandiser and Director of Logistics at The Shilla Duty Free and had worked for parent group Samsung since 2006.
Lee oversaw the opening of Shilla IPark duty free in late 2016. The store is a joint venture between Samsung’s The Shilla Duty Free and Hyundai Development Company.
The store embraces some 30,400sq m of space across the third to seventh floors, making it the world’s largest downtown duty free store at time of opening.
The venture has been negatively affected by intense competition among downtown duty free licence holders, which prompted a surge in travel group commission costs last year. And since March 2017, business has been hit severely by the downtown in Chinese tourism caused by the THAAD controversy.
