Duty free and travel retailer Lotte Duty Free has opened a beauty-focused offer at Seoul Gimpo Airport (GMP) following the re-run of tenders at the airport due to the fact that no bids were received for concession packages at the South Korean gateway.

DF&TR potential bidders cited high minimum annual guarantees that state-owned Korea Airports Corporation (KAC) had stipulated as the main deterrent to making any offers back in April, even though KAC had promised a significant increase in the airside shopping area of +72%.

TRBusiness understands that total duty free sales recorded at GMP in 2015 reached $140m from traffic of 23.2m pax.

K-BEAUTY IN THE SPOTLIGHT

Lotte DF eventually won the concession to sell beauty and miscellaneous goods in DF1 zone in early May, and it will operate space covering almost 400sq m from November.

Last Friday’s partial opening of 268sq m at Korea’s third busiest airport is a showcase for K-beauty brands as well as a variety of internationally-known names, plus some fashion/accessories and food. The store area is fully open-fronted to attract as many travellers across the threshold as possible.

Lotte DF says that one of the benefits of this area is its proximity to security/immigration which should mean high numbers of passengers passing its store front close to gate 35. To celebrate the opening, Lotte has run various offers for shoppers buying certain product categories to the value of $100 or $150 or more.