Lotte Duty Free celebrates 40th anniversary with landmark publication

Earlier this year Lotte Duty Free won a prestigious Red Dot Design Award – its second consecutive annual success in the renowned global design awards. The travel retailer earned the accolade for its Heritage Book and related branding designed to celebrate Lotte Duty Free’s 40th anniversary. Click here for full story.

SOUTH KOREA. Lotte Duty Free has celebrated its 40th anniversary with a special publication that looks back over four decades of success for the country’s number one travel retailer.

The 387-page ‘Lotte Duty Free 40th Anniversary Heritage Book’ avoids the traditional chronological approach of most such works, instead focusing on the history, authenticity, and vision of the Lotte Duty Free brand based on artistic sensibilities.

The publication will be distributed this month to over 430 national, educational and public libraries and other institutions. The Moodie Davitt Report will be producing a full review in coming weeks.

A dedicated heritage section examines the brand value (and values) of Lotte Duty Free while a history feature tracks the company’s rise from small beginnings to the Korean and international powerhouse it is today.

Lotte Duty Free opened to the public on 21 January 1980, in a 794sq m store on the 8th floor of the Lotte Department Store in Myeong-dong, Seoul. Today it is the world’s number two travel retailer according to industry benchmark, The Moodie Davitt Report Top 25 Travel Retailers ranking.

Within the Heritage pages, ‘40 years of records’ portrays representative products for each year, detailing their development with Lotte Duty Free. ‘Global Brands at Lotte Duty’ explores the relationship between retailer and brands via a series of interviews.

Lotte Duty Free CEO Kap Lee: Leading Lotte through its most challenging year into better times ahead

The book also highlights this year’s 40th anniversary collaboration with renowned British pop artist Stephen Wilson. As reported, Lotte Duty Free commissioned Wilson to create the anniversary visuals.

The History section of the book traces Lotte Duty Free’s footsteps over 40 years in a variety of ways, while also exploring the emergence of the global duty free industry.

Particular focus is given to Lotte Duty Free’s leadership role in developing Korean Wave (hallyu) marketing. Notable hallyu advertisements are archived in the book, featuring a stellar line-up of famous celebrities from Bae Yong-joon (renowned for his role in smash hit TV drama Winter Sonata) to BTS.

Some fun facts are also included. For example, if all the vouchers issued by Lotte Duty Free over 40 years were laid end to end, they would stretch for 380,000km – the distance from the earth to the moon.

Sales of KRW2.2 billion (just under US$2 million at today’s exchange rates) in 1980 have grown by about 5,000 times, reaching around KRW10 trillion (around (US$9 billion) last year.

Lotte Duty Free CEO Kap Lee said: “Lotte Duty Free will continue to pursue changes and innovations in the duty free business and strive to become a leading brand in the industry based on 40 years of achievements.”

Up, up and away. Sales at Lotte Duty Free have grown 5,000-fold since the first year of trading in 1980

Making headlines

Lotte Duty Free has appeared in 1,648 articles on The Moodie Davitt Report.com since the website’s launch in early 2003, 430 of them in headline stories.

The retailer has appeared on numerous covers of our Magazine and eZine, including one of our most memorable editions below from October 2015, which featured Tanki’s Family, a group of characters conceived, designed and animated entirely in-house.

Tanki’s Family was a breakthrough Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) project for Lotte Duty Free, underlining the company’s long-standing commitment to give back to Korean society.

The Moodie Davitt Report Founder & Chairman Martin Moodie has visited South Korea in Seoul every year (other than COVID-hit 2020) since 1989, interviewing numerous Lotte Duty Free CEOs and tracking the company’s rise.

Current Lotte Duty Free CEO Kap Lee gave his first trade interview to Martin Moodie in the March 2019 edition of The Moodie Davitt eZine. Click the image to read.

Lotte Duty Free’s beauty floor in Myeong-dong, Seoul is one of the world’s great sales locations for cosmetics
Lotte Duty Free has held 30 hugely successful Family Concerts down the years, including a pre-recorded, online version for 2020 due to the pandemic. This year’s event featured superstars such as Hwang Chi-yeul above and BTS below.

Lotte Duty Free has long been a champion of Korean products. This year, to honour its 40th anniversary, it launched a new travel retail-exclusive cosmetics brand, Sienu, developed jointly with local beauty house Amorepacific.
Looking forward: Lancôme Travel Retail Asia Pacific and Lotte Duty Free recently unveiled the Lancôme x Lotte Duty Free Smart Store Concept at the Myeong-dong store. The 520 sqm concept ‘puts digital at the service of travellers’. 

Towering achievement: Lotte Duty Free World Tower in Jamsil, Seoul

 

 

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