Picture this: a stadium of 100,000 adoring fans over three days – but not at a major independent pop concert or music festival, but a travel retail corporation’s annual ‘family’ event.

Lotte Duty Free’s 23rd ‘Lotte Family Festival’ took place earlier this month and the biggest DF&TR player – in the world’s biggest DF&TR market of South Korea – readily admits that Hallyu [the ‘Korean Wave’ that has swept Korean culture to huge popularity since the late 1990s] has transformed this event and its business.

That wave is “transcending national boundaries and bringing people together”, not least the Chinese Hallyu die-hards. It is also bringing them into Lotte’s stores in vast numbers.

This year’s family festival from 15-17 April at the Jamsil Sports Complex was hosted by Lotte Duty Free CEO Jang Sun-wook. The event is described by Lotte DF as “Hallyu’s representative cultural event”.

Of the 20,000 foreign tourists who attended 15,000 were Chinese and 5,000 Japanese, Taiwanese, Thai and Hong Kongers combined – a sign that the Korean Wave is spreading across Asia.

The company says:  “The economic effect of the 20,000 foreign tourists, who had visited South Korea to participate in the family festival amounted to CNY450m ($69.4m).” It is interesting to see that Lotte notes the value in the Chinese currency and not its own Korean won, a sign of the disproportionate influence that Hallyu has had on mainland China – and on Lotte’s own revenue.

DUTY FREE WINDFALL

Any doubt that the spending is a generalised tourism effect is dispelled by the following information from the DF&TR operator. It says: “On 18 April, the economic added value, which occurred from the tourists’ visits to Lotte Duty Free World Tower store and department stores, as well as local food tour, specialties shopping and Gangnam-area attraction tours during their stay, was estimated to be CNY4.5m/$0.7m.”

The company adds: “A single group of 20,000 foreign tourists visiting South Korea for tourism purpose is unprecedented.” So far, there have only been two occasions where a single group of 20,000 foreign tourists has visited South Korea – and both were for Lotte DF’s family festivals in August 2014 and May 2015, claims the retailer.

Lotte DF has been a driver of the Korean Wave with its festivals and publicity events using Hallyu stars. Through its parent conglomerate it has been able to leverage hotel and theme parks operations and, together with 19 overseas sales offices, has established a cooperation system with 250 local travel agencies.

Through its marketing operations such as VIP events, the Lotte DF Family Festival and fan meetings, the company has directly attract 2.45m foreigners over three years (2012-2014).

THIS YEAR’S FAMILY FESTIVAL

At this year’s event, tourists had gathered four hours prior to participate in a fan meeting with one of Asia’s most popular stars, Lee Min-ho.

Despite heavy rain on the 15 April, local Korean fans as well as foreigner fans filled the stadium to watch performances by world-famous entertainer PSY and Korea’s top singers such as Sung Si-kyung and Ailee. In total, the stadium was filled by 45,000 people.

On the third day, which was held in a picnic-like environment, eight teams of artists had performed for over seven hours with 35,000 audience members.

Lotte DF says: “With the rising interest in the Hallyu culture from various Asian countries, this is the fruit of Lotte Duty Free’s efforts. Since Hallyu concerts for foreigners first began in

April 2014, it has been projected that around 111,500 foreign tourists had visited Korea up to this year’s event.”

Responding to criticism that the system in place is a cheap tourism product biased towards shopping which could damage Korean tourism in the long-run through low return visits, Lotte Duty Free CEO Jang Sun-wook is forthright.

“Lotte Duty Free has been regularly investing large budgets and holding Hallyu cultural events to attract foreign tourists. It will continue to plan excellent tourism products tied to cultural contents that will enhance the competitive edge of Korean tourism,” he says.

The retailer is already planning its next Hallyu event: around 3,000 Chinese fans are scheduled to visit Korea from this month to June to participate in a fan meeting for Lotte Duty Free’s new model, singer Hwang Chi-yeul.