JAPAN. South Korean travel retailer Lotte Duty Free and its partners Bic Camera and New Kansai International Airport Company (NKIAC) have pulled out of a planned downtown duty free shop proposed for Osaka.
The partnership, first revealed by The Moodie Davitt Report last February, was due to open a 4,400sq m Lotte Duty Free Osaka store on the sixth and seventh floors of Bic Camera Namba in Osaka. The partnership was driven by the extraordinary Chinese buying wave, dubbed ‘bakugai’ (‘explosive buying’), which began in Japan in 2015.
The partnership aimed to generate sales of KW130 billion (US$109 million) during its first full year of operation in 2017. However, a sharp downturn in duty free spending by foreign visitors has prompted the partners to pull the plug on the project – at least for now. According to The Japan Times, spending by foreign visitors for July-September 2016 fell, the first quarterly drop in over four and a half years.
A Lotte Duty Free spokesman told The Moodie Davitt Report: “Considering the recent consumption trend change of tourists visiting Japan, Bic Camera, Kansai Airport and Lotte Duty Free agreed to put a stop to the business.
“However, Lotte Duty Free will continue to examine the potential site and the value of downtown business in Japan, including Osaka.”
