Despite Beijing's ban on tours to South Korea last year still not fully lifted,… Korean duty-free shops have seen record sales this year.
Won Jung-hwan reports.

South Korean duty free shops saw their sales increase,... despite China's continued curbs on group tours to the country.
According to data compiled by the Korea Duty Free Shops Association,… duty-free sales reached an all-time high in the January-to-September period of this year.
The total revenue for duty-free shops nationwide reached a whopping 12-point-9 billion U.S. dollars over the first nine months of the year,… exceeding the 12-point-8 billion posted for the whole of 2017.
And the total revenue for October was over 1-point-4 billion U.S. dollars,… the 6th largest monthly revenue in history.

This comes despite industry watchers' concerns over the decreasing number of Chinese tourists visiting the country after Beijing banned group tours in retaliation for Seoul's deployment of the THAAD missile system last year.
Korea received 2-point-17 million Chinese visitors in the January-to-June period,… down 3.7 percent from the first six months of 2017.
However, experts say the robust duty-free sales came as individual Chinese vendors, who buy duty-free goods then resell them to others, have been on a shopping spree in South Korea recently, offsetting the damage from the ban on group tours.

Local duty free shops are anticipating strong performances down the road, once Beijing eases its economic retaliation against Seoul.

Won Jung-hwan, Arirang News