Lotte Duty Free opens store at Australia's Melbourne Airport

South Korea's Lotte Duty Free announced on Thursday that it is opening a new store at Melbourne Airport in Australia and entering full-scale operation.

Lotte Duty Free won the business rights for the Melbourne Airport location through competition with six other duty-free operators in January.

The company acquired the store previously operated by Swiss company Dufry and started operations last month. The license is valid until May 2033.

Currently, the store occupies approximately 3,600 square meters, but Lotte Duty Free plans to expand it to 5,600 square meters by 2027, aiming for annual sales of 300 billion won ($235 million).

The Melbourne Airport store handles 390 brands, including cosmetics, perfumes, liquor, tobacco and miscellaneous items. According to Australia Pacific Airports Corporation (Melbourne), as of May, the number of international travelers at the airport reached approximately 740,000, recovering to 87.6% of the pre-COVID-19 level in 2019.

Moreover, it is expected that the number of travelers will increase rapidly due to future international flight expansions and other factors.

"Lotte Duty Free, which has overcome the long tunnel of the pandemic, will embark on a new leap based on the successful operation of the Melbourne Airport store," CEO of Lotte Duty Free Kim Ju-nam said. "We plan to develop our business territory by pioneering overseas hub airports and become a global platform."

Lotte Duty Free currently operates a total of 14 stores in six countries, including the Sydney downtown store in Australia and Danang downtown store in Vietnam. Among them, the sales of the six stores in the Oceania region increased by about 260% compared to the previous year.

Write to Mi-Kyoung Lee at capital@hankyung.com