Lotte Duty Free is the leading operator of duty free retail in korea and a leading regional operator both downtown and airport travel retail.

Incheon International Airport, depending on the year is either the number one or number two airport in the world in terms of global retail sales while the Korea as a whole is the far and away the number one duty free market in the world with approx 10% of global distribution.

As part of Lotte’s commitment to an IPO in 2016 and goal to be the number one travel retainer by 2020, their aggressive bidding proved successful in the winning of key travel retail categories in the recent bid concession at Seoul’s Incheon Airport.

The categories of cosmetics, liquor & tobacco and specialty food are airport retail standards and represent the highest sales potential and where Lotte focused their successful bid effort.

Although Incheon airport is a new and modern airport with tremendous concourse volume, the available ceiling heights within the tenant spaces were proportionally low. 

LT was conceived in a dark environment envelope highlighted with contrasting dramatic sculptural floating ribs and a simple plan to facilitate exposure and ease of time constraint shopping.

The cosmetics category has so many brands and is so important 2 separate tenant spaces were developed to create separate worlds focused on age based brand presentations.  Younger, color and price point presented in an edgier environment of high contrast while the signature international brands are presented in an elegant and understated environment.  Both shops represent the simplest in plan type with brand exposure and clear circulation to assist the large volumes of customers throughout the day.

rkd retail/iQ was responsible for the strategic brief, all retail planning & design, graphic communications and construction documentation.