October 23, 2014 12:32
Korean, Japanese and Chinese tourists each prefer different luxury labels, according to Lotte Duty Free.
Among handbags Koreans prefer Gucci, Chinese MCM, and Japanese Louis Vuitton. Koreans and Chinese both like Cartier watches, but the Japanese favorite is Rolex.
The preferences can be seen in sales records from January to July this year submitted by the Korea Customs Service.
Chinese tourists bought 122,722 handbags from MCM, a Munich-born but Korean-owned label. Japanese bought 9,667 Louis Vuitton bags and Koreans 22,046 Gucci bags.
Chinese visitors purchased 16,650 Cartier watches, and Japanese clearly favored Rolex with 1,114 purchases. Koreans bought 2,864 Cartier watches, but Tag Heuer was a close second with 2,429. Tag Heuer is not particularly popular among the other two nationalities.
Chinese bought 5,394 Omega watches, but they proved unpopular among Koreans and Japanese.
In the liquor department, Ballantine's whisky was most popular amongst Korean and Japanese tourists with 128,962 and 35,596 bottles. But Chinese preferred Hennessy cognac with 76,231 bottles.
Figures from the past four years show that Koreans are spending less and less in duty-free shops. The average Korean customer spent US$747 in 2011 but that dropped to $548 in 2013. As of July this year, the amount was $441.
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