SOUTH KOREA. Lotte Duty Free has struck a cooperation agreement with travel and leisure online platform Klook to provide benefits for Koreans travelling overseas. The agreement comes amid a sharp rise in demand for outbound travel.
According to statistics released recently by the Korea Tourism Organization, 316,000 Koreans travelled abroad in May, an increase of about +320% compared to the same month last year. In June, Lotte Duty Free’s domestic sales (from Korean customers) increased by around +260% year-on-year.
The retailer said the Klook partnership enabled it to “strengthen benefits for local customers to keep pace with the increase in overseas travel by Koreans”.
Klook, launched in Hong Kong in 2014, is a bookings service offering discounted tickets, tours and experiences in more than 1,000 cities. For Lotte Duty Free members, Klook provides discount coupons that can be used to make reservations for hotels, rental cars and activities in overseas travel destinations.
Separately, to mark the restart of group tours to Japan, Lotte Duty Free is offering a group tour package that allows travel to Tokyo or Osaka, key tourist destinations, for two nights and three days.
‘Fly me to Japan’ is a programme that offers the chance (on a first come, first served basis) to Korean customers to win the Japan trip, if they spend US$5,000 or more at Lotte Duty Free’s downtown stores in Seoul from 4-25 July. The offer is open to the first 20 customers that qualify, with each able to take one guest.
Customers with single-day purchases of US$500 or more will also have the opportunity to travel, with their names entered into a lottery draw.
In other news, Lotte Duty Free has opened all of its overseas locations, the latest Lotte Duty Free Tokyo Ginza (as reported) and its Cam Ranh Airport store in Nha Trang, Vietnam, which was temporarily closed due to the airport shutdown.
Lotte Duty Free is offering further benefits to Korean customers who visit its overseas stores.
At Singapore Changi Airport, Guam Airport, Brisbane Airport and Danang/Hanoi Airport stores the retailer will present 10-15% discount coupons (depending on the purchase amount) to shoppers until August. Meanwhile on Seoul Gimpo-Tokyo Haneda flights five customers with boarding tickets will be given a gift card worth KRW20,000, which can used at Lotte Duty Free Tokyo Ginza in July.
A Lotte Duty Free official said: “We have strengthened customer benefits in line with the demand of Koreans travelling abroad. We will continue to strive to provide differentiated benefits to Lotte Duty Free customers.”
