Lotte Duty Free expands in Vietnam

South Korea’s Lotte Duty Free is expanding in Vietnam with a new store in Danang city, considering it "a strong foundation" to maintain the firm's leading position in Southeast Asia.

Lotte Duty Free celebrated the opening of its first downtown duty shop in Vietnam, located in Danang city on the central coast, on Tuesday.

This is its fourth store in the country, which the retailer entered in 2017 by opening the first at Danang International Airport. Lotte Duty Free was the first Korean duty-free operator to do so.

Lotte Duty Free plans to open a store in downtown Hanoi next year as part of what the retailer calls the Lotte Duty Free Belt which encompasses the Asia Pacific region.

The newest store in Danang is the largest of the four Lotte Duty Free stores in Vietnam. Covering 2,000 square meters at VVMall at My Khe Beach, a popular tourist spot in Danang, the store houses more than 200 brands of cosmetics and perfumes, wines and spirits, jewelry, watches, chocolate, sweets, fashion items, and others. Featured Vietnamese products include pearls, coffee, tea, and local foods.

Lotte Duty Free described Vietnam as the company’s “forward base” for targeting the entire Southeast Asian duty free market. The major travel retailer expects to achieve sales of more than 50 billion won (almost $38 million) a year from the downtown Danang operation, as Vietnam’s tourism market has recovered to pre-Covid levels.

“Vietnam comes with further potential in tourism and travel retail development,” said Lotte Duty Free CEO Kap Lee. “The Danang downtown store will be a strong foundation for us to maintain our leading position in the whole Southeast Asian market.”

The shop complements the Korean retailer’s presence at Danang International Airport, Cam Ranh International Airport in Nha Trang, also on the central coast, and Noi Bai International Airport in Hanoi.

The retailer has not been present at Tan Son Nhat International Airport in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam’s southern economic hub. The second at Cam Ranh opened in 2018, followed by the third in 2019 at Noi Bai.

Vietnam welcomed nearly 2.4 million international arrivals in the first 10 months of this year, increasing almost 19 times from the same period last year, a low base caused by the pandemic, General Statistics Office data shows.

The country targets about five million foreign travelers in 2022, according to the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism.

Danang saw almost 3.1 million arrivals, both domestic and international, in the 10-month period, up 182.4% year-on-year, the Da Nang Statistics Office reported. The travelers include 354,400 foreign arrivals, up 275.5%, and more than 2.73 million local ones, up 173.6%.