The belated official unveiling of Lotte Duty Free’s liquor & tobacco shops at Singapore Changi Airport is due to take place in the first half of next year, TRBusiness has been told.

As reported, Lotte Duty Free took over the liquor & tobacco contract in June 2020 – initially trading on an online-only basis – amid severe challenges for Singapore due to pandemic-enforced restrictions on international travel.

Updating TRBusiness today, a Lotte Duty Free spokesperson confirmed that 14 of Lotte Duty Free’s shops – including one pop-up unit – are currently operational across all four terminals, with its remaining shops under renovation.

Lotte says while the first half of next year has been earmarked for the official opening ceremony, the retailer is working hard to ensure this will occur as soon as possible.

Lotte’s six-year concession, which runs from 9 June 2020 to 8 June 2026, covers 20 shops (including the pop-up store) over 8,000sq m of commercial space.

TERMINAL FOUR REOPENS

It emerged over the summer that several new shops at Terminal 2 from Lotte and rival The Shilla Duty Free (beauty) were to open their doors ahead of the reopening of the southern wing of Terminal 2 departures on 11 October.

Terminal 4 resumed operations yesterday (13 September), ushering in flights from Cathay Pacific, Korean Air and Air Asia.

In August, CAG announced plans to award 25 new leases in the coming months as the airport scales up in response to rebounding passenger demand.

On 29 August, Singapore further eased its travel curbs by permitting non-fully vaccinated travellers to enter without undergoing a seven-day quarantine period or be subjected to an exit-SHN PCR test.

However, they are required to submit a negative pre-departure test two days before leaving Singapore.

According to projections from the Singapore Tourism Board, four to six million international visitor arrivals are expected in 2022.

The island state clocked 1.5 million visitor arrivals in the first half of this year, with the top five visitor markets being Indonesia (282,000), India (219,000), Malaysia (139,000), Australia (125,000) and the Philippines (81,000).

For more on Lotte Duty Free, watch out for the revered Top 10 Global Operators report, the publication of which coincides with the TFWA World Exhibition & Conference in Cannes (2-6 October).