Affected by the pandemic, the sales of duty-free stores in South Korea fell by nearly 40% year-on-year in 2020.

Yonhap News Agency reported on February 1 that the Korean Duty-Free Shop Association said on the 1st that due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, the sales of duty-free shops in South Korea in 2020 decreased by 37.7% year-on-year to 15.5051 trillion won (about 15 billion USD).

South Koreans are blocked from leaving the country due to the pandemic, and the proportion of foreigners spending in duty-free shops increased from 83% in 2019 to 94% last year.

The number of duty-free shop visitors last year was 10.669,000, which is only 22% of that in 2019 (48.443 million).

Duty-free store sales in December last year were 1.1848 trillion won, a month-on-month decrease of 16.6%