SOUTH KOREA. Lotte Duty Free has today announced the temporary closure of its Jeju downtown duty free store from tomorrow in order to prevent the spread of the coronavirus domestically.
The measure is necessary “for the safety of customers and employees”, Lotte said.
Lotte Duty Free confirmed that a Chinese customer who visited the store on 23 January and later returned to Yangzhou, China, had been confirmed subsequently with the coronavirus.
Until the closure, no new customers are being allowed in today and customers already in the store have been asked to leave.
Lotte Duty Free Jeju will carry out additional quarantine work after the store is closed. The retailer will decide when to reopen after consultation with the health authorities and Jeju Special Self-Governing Province.
A company spokesperson said: “We decided to close the business quickly on a temporary basis to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus in Korea.”
The news will be a body blow to the Jeju tourism and travel retail sectors which had begun to recover from a disastrous collapse in Chinese tourism due to the THAAD row between South Korea and China. Unlike Seoul, which had been able to compensate the slump in group tourism with enhanced daigou business, Jeju is much more reliant on traditional duty free shopping by overseas visitors, almost all of them Chinese.
As reported, Lotte Duty Free formed an emergency response committee on 24 January with CEO Kap Lee as Chairman. The retailer is conducting thorough health inspections at stores, implementing a self-disinfecting policy at least six times a day; obliging all employees to wear masks and providing customers with masks.
